Normal Is Overrated
by Nadin4400
Summary: Owen and Claire got married very young after a brief summer romance, but when Owen enlisted in the NAVY without telling Claire, she annulled it immediately and they hadn't seen each other since - until they both ended up on Isla Nublar. Clawen.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note** : This is a very nice idea to play with, so I hope you guys will find it entertaining :D

* * *

 _16 years earlier_

"Don't you dare, Owen! Don't you-"

The rest of Claire's warning was cut off when Owen Grady barreled into her, his arm slipping around her waist, and the next moment they were both flying off a small dock and into the lake, shoes, shirts, and all.

Cold water knocked all air out of her lungs, filling her mouth and nose, and Claire kicked her legs furiously, gasping hungrily when she broke out onto the surface, her heart hammering. Owen resurfaced right next to her seconds later, laughing and shaking the lake water off his hair like a dog.

"What are you, 5?"

Glaring at him, Claire turned around and started to swim toward the grassy shore, mercifully empty on this stifling-hot afternoon. Her tennis shoes were weighing her down, making her progress slow, her long bright-red hair floating behind her like a cape, glowing golden in the sun. A mermaid's hair, Owen called it, threading his fingers through it.

"Hey." Owen was right beside her in a blink of an eye – the man must have been a fish in the past life – and his arms were around her again, pulling her toward his chest. He was smiling that half-smile that kept making Claire's heart trip over itself every time she'd see it, and it was near damn impossible to be mad at him when his hair was sticking out in every direction, his eyes crinkling with amusement. "What's the point of going to the lake and not having a swim?"

With a sigh, Claire weaved her arms around his neck, allowing him to keep them both afloat.

"You only did that to see me in a wet shirt," she accused him.

"Now, why would I do that?" Owen gasped, mock-appalled. "I mean, I've seen you without it, so…"

With a groan, she tried to pull away, but his grip was too tight, and then his lips found hers, and everything else faded away. Claire pressed herself closer to him, the warmth of Owen's body a striking contract to the cool water around them. He was smiling against her mouth, kissing her slowly, and deliberately, and like they had all the time in the world.

If anyone told Claire two years ago – hell, _a year_ ago – that this would be happening, she'd laugh them in the face and call them a moron.

Two years her senior, Owen Grady had always been considered 'bad news' in their small community. Living in a run-down house without a mother and a perpetually drunk father, he was forced to fend for himself, doing odd jobs since he was 13 to make sure he wouldn't starve to death. Never caught doing anything wrong himself, he used to hang out with the wrong crowd nonetheless, the kids from similarly less fortunate families who'd much rather spend their Friday nights in the parking lot behind a movie theater than at home with their permanently fighting parents.

Every town had them, and every town was eager to close its eyes on them.

However, surprising everyone, Owen got into college and left town when Claire started her junior year in high school. She saw him once since, at most. Apparently, athletic scholarships went a long way, and what he didn't succeed in in academics, what with showing up for school only half of the time, he compensated for just fine on a soccer field. Frankly, she never gave the troubled boy living down the street much thought, their social circles so drastically apart they might have as well been living in parallel dimensions.

Until several weeks ago when Claire's car broke down on the outskirts of town.

Owen was on a summer break, dealing with the house and whatever his father left behind when he died a few months earlier from either a heart attack, or a liver failure, or both. He spotted her staring more or less helplessly at the tubes and gears under the hood of her old Honda, which it took her two summers to save up for when he was passing by, the engine of his Triumph motorcycle scaring every living thing in a 5-mile radius.

He stopped and asked if she needed help. She politely declined, not recognizing him at first, not even when he took off the helmet. He got off his bike away and walked over to her, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand, a black shirt stretched over his broad chest. She stepped aside obediently, having understood by then that she was not going to jump-start the smoking engine by herself, and this road was hardly the busiest one in the area. In the half an hour since she found herself here, Owen was the first person she saw.

This random encounter led to Owen giving her a ride because apparently her car needed a new battery, to them stopping by for ice-cream because it was a hellishly hot day, to a date, and then to a couple dozen more. In fact, she had a really hard time remembering the last day in the past month and a half they hadn't spent together, the heat melting them into one stretch of time.

First love, first kiss, the first man she'd ever been with, the first heart-leaping-over-the-moon-and-sailing-into-a-stratosphere kind of elation, filling her with unimaginable lightness, her head swimming and her smile impossible to wipe off her face.

Owen was wonderful, there was no other word for it. He was funny, and caring, and smart, and he read a lot – William Golding, Jack London, Faulkner, Wilde. He's trace lazy circles on her stomach with his fingers, telling her about college, his classes, his life so different from the one he led in this sleepy town until only a couple of years ago. He'd listen to her, too, ask her about her family, the classes she planned to take in college she was going to in the fall-

-throw her into a lake now and then apparently.

She had never been happier.

"They look like nothing today," Claire said, staring up at the clear blue sky with faint wisps of clouds floating across it as they waited for their clothes to dry up after the unplanned swim-slash-make-out-session-in-the-lake.

Lying on his back next to her near the water, Owen threw his arm behind his hear and peered up, squinting a little. "This one kinda looks like truck. Only upside down."

She laughed. "Now you're just making this up."

He stayed quiet for a moment or two as the gentle summer breeze blew over them, and then blurted out, "Marry me."

Claire turned her head to find him watch her, their shoulders touching, their faces only a few inches apart.

"What?" Did he really just say that?

"Marry me, Claire."

Her eyes narrowed, yet her lips were still curved into a small smile as she waited for Owen to laugh it off, admit it was a joke. "What are you talking about?"

Owen caught her hand, his thumb running over her knuckles and her lean fingers, "I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you." He weaved his fingers through hers, their eyes meeting again. "I want to wake up every morning next to you, and laugh together, and fight sometimes because, let's face, you've met us, right?" He let go of her hand and rolled onto his side, propping himself up on his elbow, tracing his hand along her face. "Every day, until the end of time."

Her smile slipped, and for a long moment she simply stared at him, taking in the bright blue of his eyes, gentle curls falling on his forehead, bleached by the summer sun, his sharp cheekbones and the straight line of his nose – every smallest detail she wanted to memorize forever. If he could freeze this moment in time and live it over and over again for the rest of her life, she'd do so without thinking twice.

"We can't do it," she said, trying to sound reasonable. "I'm leaving for college in a month."

"So do I," Owen shrugged. "That's the beauty of it. We'll be free. We can make it work."

He was not joking, and in that moment, she realized that it didn't sound all that insane. Not at all. She wanted all of this, too. Everything he mentioned, and more. And she didn't want _them_ to end. "But don't you think-" She started nonetheless, ever the pragmatic.

"I know that I'm not going to change my mind about you, Claire. Not ever." He took her hand and kissed her fingers. "Are you?"

His eyebrow arched quizzically, and Claire felt her lips tug upwards. Drunk on the smell of grass and the intoxicating scent of summer, she slipped her hand around his neck, pulling him down until his face was only a breath away from hers, searching his eyes with hers. "Never."

xoox

The thing about never doing anything crazy was that no one ever expected it of you.

They couldn't get married in their home town – it wouldn't take five minutes for everyone to find out about it, including Claire's parents who, she knew for a fact, would be the opposite of ecstatic about it. Her father never bothered to hide his contempt for the Grady family, or at least for Owen's father, often calling Owen 'a lost cause' on account of his barely making it through high school, his motorcycle, and the rumors about his behaviour that were never proven to be true.

Granted, the concerns of Claire's parents were nowhere near her at the moment. Her older sister, Karen, got married a year ago and was expecting her first child now. Still a few months away from the due date, she was already the center of attention of everyone in the family, which Claire exploited as much as she could.

It was a quiet and warm Saturday when Claire and Owen drove to the next town, having obtained a marriage certificate a week earlier, giddy with anticipation and the plans that threatened to spill over the brim. She didn't need a dress or a ceremony, she told Owen earlier when he brought it up, or the guests, for that matter. She wanted to be with him, plain and simple.

The Town Hall was empty, their footsteps echoing in the spacious corridors and under the high ceilings, the marriage officiant calling them into her office right away. In her floral sundress, Claire felt like a princess. And the way Owen was looking at her… She vaguely remembered saying _I do_ , too busy not floating away at the sight of his smile.

It was perfect.

Until it wasn't.

Until one week before they were leaving for school, Owen asked her to meet him at the picnic area behind the ice-cream parlour they frequented and told her he enlisted in the NAVY.

"You did _what_?" She stared at him, wide-eyed, certain she'd heard him wrong.

Owen scrubbed a hand down his face. Sitting on the picnic table, his feet on the bench, he clasped his hands together. "Look, I had to…"

"But we're… Owen, our classes start in two weeks! What could have possibly happened-"

"I had no choice." His shoulders slouched helplessly, his eyes begging her to understand, his expression pained. "It'll pay for school. I don't really have-"

"What about your scholarship?" She demanded, her mind reeling and her stomach twisted into a tight knot, which made breathing near impossible.

"It's not enough." He ran his hand through his hair. "I have a job, too, but it's not enough to cover the living expenses."

"Okay, but you're not alone now. I will…" Claire began.

"No," he interjected firmly. "I'm not gonna have my wife do my job, Claire. I must be able to provide for you."

She bristled at that, her eyebrows knitted together. "So, what am I supposed to do?"

"It won't be long. Just until I save up enough-"

"No!"

He blinked. "No?"

"My father was in the military, Owen. I have spent 15 years of my life watching my mother go pale whenever the phone would ring because she knew what kind of news could be waiting for her on the other end of the line. I am not doing that."

Owen's jaw squared stubbornly. "Well, I'm not going to make my wife pay my bills."

"Great! Then how about I'll make it easy for both of us?" She crossed her arms over her chest, looking him steadily in the face, her gaze heavy and uncompromising. In the late afternoon sun her hair was so bright it looked like it was on fire, thick waves falling down her back. "You don't want a wife to inconvenience you and I can't deal with a husband jumping under the bullets."

He paled. "What are you saying?"

"You do it, and we're over." Her voice quivered unsteadily, betraying her resolve.

"You can't be serious. Come on, Claire. Look, I'm sorry it's gotta be like that."

"Thanks for telling me before you made this life-altering decision for both of us, by the way," Claire added, her voice ringing with tears burning her eyes.

"You think it's fun for me?" He demanded, disbelieving.

"Sure sounds like it, Owen."

"What do you want me say?" He asked helplessly.

Claire's shoulders sagged and she looked away from him. "Nothing, I don't want you to say anything, but if you leave, you and I are done."

xoox

 _Present day_

Claire's phone buzzed on the desk near her laptop for the third time in the last five minutes, and she promptly ignored it. Again. Karen and her persistence… Claire didn't have time to go home for Thanksgiving. She barely had time to sleep, buried under the piles of projects and Simon Masrani's ideas she wanted so bad to come true.

Outside her floor-to-ceiling window, the day was bright and sunny, the sky so impossibly blue it was hard to look at it. Claire didn't trust it through. There were three seasons on this island – torrential rains that threatened to wash away the park and everyone in it off the face of the earth; thick heat, heavy and suffocating; and a combination of the two when the weather would change fifteen times a day, the storms passing over Isla Nublar faster than anyone could pull out an umbrella. They were currently in the middle of the third one, and she was certain that she might need a canoe for her afternoon trip to one of the paddocks with Mr. Masrani.

Right now, however, she was signing order forms for Zara – everything that needed to be purchased for the resort, from the tiniest of souvenirs to every single food item required for the restaurants, needed to go through her desk. Tedious as it was, Claire found it easier to deal with any crisis when she knew where it came from. It made her feel safe. It made her feel _in control_. And one couldn't make it to the heights she'd climbed without getting just a little bit paranoid about losing the grip on reality.

Claire flipped through the whole stack to make sure that every page was signed before handing the papers back to Zara.

"Is there anything else?" She asked. Her phone chirped again. She didn't even look at it this time.

"Well, actually…." Zara started in that conspiratorial voice that didn't mean anything good. "What are you doing this Friday?"

Claire's eyes narrowed. "Why?"

"Alec said there's this guy InGen hired for their new project-"

Oh, boy… "What project?" Maybe if she could have her talk about that, Clair thought, she'd get distracted enough to forget where she was going with that sentence.

Alec, Zara's husband-to-be, was a part of ACU team, the members of which rotated between Masrani Global that owned Jurassic World and InGen, its daughter company that was focused more on scientific research than entertainment. Due to his position, he knew just about every handler on the island better than Claire did, which was impressive because Claire made it her business to know everything about this place. Granted, she didn't need to know every handler by name, especially those that didn't even work in the park, but still.

"Something about testing animal intelligence?" Zara offered if a little uncertainly. "Doesn't matter. So, they hired that guy, and maybe if you want to… ah, have drinks with us on Friday…" She trailed off, watching Claire expectantly.

It was hard to tell which was more pathetic – Zara trying to fix Claire's nonexistent love life, or this question being entirely unnecessary because Zara, of all people, knew for a fact that Claire didn't have plans for the Friday night, unless squeezing in some overtime counted as plans.

"I don't think so."

"Aw, come on, Claire," her assistant started. "It's been-"

"Don't say that,' Claire warned her, pulling her laptop closer and booting it up.

"Look, it's just a drink or two. He seems like a cool guy."

"And… does he have a name?" Claire asked, more because it was the right thing to do than because she was curious in any way.

Zara winced a little. "Ah… Brady-something, I think?"

"Well, that's very… charming." Claire cleared her throat. "Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the thought, but as tempting as your offer sounds, that would be a no."

"Thirty minutes," Zara began, but Claire's phone let out a series of high-pitched chirps, Simon Masrani's name blinking on the screen, and she grabbed it hurriedly from her desk. "Grady," Zara muttered, her face lighting up. "Owen Grady-" She began, but Claire was already deep in her conversation, motioning for her to go now. Whatever it was, they were going to have to finish it some other time. "Right," Zara murmured as she picked up the papers, threw one last look at Claire who was now standing by the window, looking down at the park, a hand on her hip, as she explained something to Mr. Masrani in a light, measured voice.

They made a good team, a man with his head in the clouds and a woman who knew how to bring him down to the earth before he floated too far off to ever come back.

Claire considered her partnership with Masrani Global the best thing that ever happened to her. Sure, the hours were insane. She often couldn't remember the time when she went to bed before midnight and didn't have to get up at 6, but the benefits beat the difficulties. She loved the challenges of her position, loved being the first person to make something of such caliber successful – and there truly was no other place like Jurassic World, no other project of similar magnitude.

All in all, Claire was happy the way she were. The possibilities were endless, her future with the park was thrilling. No day ever was like the one before. The only thing she wished was possible was, perhaps, having more than 24 hours in a day to cram in everything she wanted to do, everything she had in mind about this place.

They were starting to talk about the expansion now. The island had a limited territory obviously, and they needed to consider the needs of each of the species regarding their habitats, but otherwise – she was swarmed with ideas and propositions. Like the petting zoo that was their newest addition and an instant success. Also, they only had two Mosasaurus shows now – in the morning and early afternoon, but with the longer days ahead of them, she planned to add another one in the evening, maybe install some fancy lighting in the pool to make it more spectacular and memorable. After all, it was just a feeding, the animal wasn't being exploited in any harmful way.

All things considered, she didn't need a date. She didn't have time for any of this, especially on the island.

There was a man not so long ago. He worked with Research and Development, their paths often crossing regarding one thing or another. They went out a few times, but it became clear fast that it wasn't going to work out. Her schedule and his career ambitions, and the general absence of the vibe… But they were still stuck on this piece of land surrounded by water and unable to simply walk away from having to deal with one another.

No one knew, as far as she was aware, and he didn't make a big deal out of it. But what if she was less fortunate the next time? It was one thing to joke about the lack of personal space here, and something else entirely to have to tiptoe around someone and be the center of gossip – neither idea looked particularly appealing to her. Besides, if she gave up any more of her sleeping time, she'd have to get a coffee IV just to make it through her 12-hour days, and that wasn't an option.

"Yes, Mr. Masrani," Claire responded to Simon's request. "I'll have that report on your desk by 2, and I'll see you in the afternoon."

By the time she hung up, her mind had already switched back to business, going through her mental to-do list, crossing off the items that were either accomplished, or were no longer relevant.

When Zara brought her coffee an hour later, Claire had long forgotten about her blind date offer, her nose buried in the spreadsheets that came in from Finance earlier that day.

xoox

"Home, sweet home," Owen announced, climbing out of the jeep with the park's logo on the doors and squinting in the bright sunlight.

Barry, his fellow animal handler, hopped out as well, looking around with a mixture of confusion and disbelief as he swept the clearing with a long glance, taking in the trees around it, the lagoon, and—

"It's a shed, Owen," he pointed out, uncertain. "Are you sure this is the right place?"

"Sure is."

Hands on his hips, Owen overserved the bungalow in front of him, his lips curved into a small, satisfied smile. It didn't look like much, but then again, he didn't need much. Not after his last tour that felt more like hell than anything else.

He knew what he was signing up for when he decided to join the NAVY, and even though it wasn't exactly what he expected it to be, there was little a person couldn't get used to over time. He loved having a certain order to his life, liked knowing he was doing something good. The timing was off, that much was clear, but otherwise, there weren't a lot of moments when Owen regretted his decision. And sometimes, when he tried real hard, the summer he had spent with Claire Dearing almost felt like a dream. A good one, but a dream nonetheless.

Sixteen years was a long time.

When InGen's offer came in a few months ago, there was little for him to think about. He didn't believe them at first. Sure, he knew about Jurassic World, and the first park, and John Hammond and his crazy experiments - everyone did. But training Velociraptors? Still, it was not the kind of offer anyone would turn down without proper consideration.

Owen said yes to one meeting, and then another, talking in detail about his work with sea mammals with Simon Masrani and Henry Wu. And before he knew it, there was an inch-thick contract full of legal jargon he was certain even corporate lawyers had trouble understanding, until he ended up here, in this very spot, on this morning, looking at what was meant to be his home for the next little while.

"It's a tool shed," Barry repeated, scanning their surroundings again with a new degree of apprehension, as if he hoped that another house, a bigger one, with a pool and maybe a tennis court, and a personal chef for good measure, was hiding behind what Owen knew was the real deal. "You can't live in a tool shed."

Owen walked over to the jeep and pulled the door open, reaching into the backseat for two duffel bags of his modest possessions, chuckling under his breath. The air was hot already, thick and humid, smelling strongly of wet soil, ocean and jungle, an almost intoxicating mix after several years in the Middle East and the desert where the dust was getting into every crevice of his clothes and body with the slightest gust of wind. The contrast was so striking Owen could hardly believe this was even real.

He arrived a few days earlier and stayed with the rest of the handlers until he got a green light for moving into the bungalow. Barry came to the island a week before him, from a similar mammal research program, but in California, both of them still trying to figure out what it was that InGen wanted to do with the raptors on account of how they were not a part of the park's entertainment projects. Not that it mattered, really. The paychecks promised to them were so generous, Owen would have agreed to teach _anything_ to jump on command, not to mention that he was curious beyond measure.

"'Course I can," he said easily, flashing a quick smile at Barry. "I'll fix it up, polish it a bit." Owen set his bags on the porch steps. "It'll be good as new."

"Not possible," Barry let out a short laugh, still looking dumbfounded and somewhat skeptical, like maybe Owen was pulling his leg. "This place doesn't look like it was ever new." He shielded his eyes with his hand from the sun. "Thought you'd be living with the rest of us."

They did offer, of course. Every staff member required to stay on the island had an option to live in a complex built specifically for the employees. Comprising of several apartment buildings, it was of a smaller caliber than the resort, but still a decent accommodation. However, when Vic Hoskins offhandedly mentioned the old park structures that stood separately from the newer facilities, Owen asked whether they were suitable for living. They were not. However, Hoskins added then, there was a cabin not far from the paddock designated for the raptors, currently unoccupied. Owen didn't need to hear much else. That little detail sealed the deal.

Right now, it didn't look like much, but he knew there was running water and proper plumbing here, as well as a power generator and a gas stove. He would install solar panels to make the best use of what this place had an unlimited supply of for most of the year. Otherwise, it'd make do. It wasn't like he was going to spend much time here anyway. Doubted he'd have a minute of rest on his hands in the next… few years perhaps.

"Yeah, but it's too far away from the paddock," Owen said, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

Barry nodded and didn't press for more. He gave the bungalow another studious look instead. "You're crazy."

Owen grinned. "It's my middle name."

He had a meeting with Simon Masrani and Hoskins scheduled for later today to discuss the work he was expected to do in more detail. The raptors, according to Henry Wu, were to hatch within the next week or so. They'd stay at the lab for a little while until they didn't need extended care and supervision. Until then, it was Owen's job to check the paddock and ensure its security and safety for the animals, as well as check the compliance of its size with the regulations set by the park's charter regarding the healthy environment for the animals.

It wasn't much, not for another week or maybe two, but Vic Hoskins didn't look like a man who'd let him sit back with a bottle of beer and enjoy the beach or something. Not that Owen wanted that. As crazy as this idea was, he couldn't wait to get his hands on those raptors and see what they were capable of. And if they were anywhere as smart as dolphins, this was going to be a fun game!

"So, you're seriously gonna stay here?" Barry asked again, just to make sure.

"It ain't that bad," Owen chuckled. He liked the quiet, he wanted to add, but after living for a few days in basically a frat house, it felt like an odd thing to say.

"Yeah. Right." Amused, Barry shook his head and checked his watch. "You about done here?"

Owen looked around one last time, noticing the dock and what used to be a fire pit, deciding to check everything else later, and nodded, heading toward the car again.

xoox

The first time Owen met Simon Masrani was four weeks ago, and the man was everything Owen didn't expect him to be. Enthusiastic and down-to-earth, he was nothing like Vic Hoskins who was the first person Owen talked to during the preliminary interview, and not only because he could afford to be anything he wanted to be. Simon explained the general concept of the contract InGen signed with the military, patiently answering Owen's questions.

He had that kind of charisma to him that made everything seem possible. Breeding dinosaurs? Sure! Training them for something? No problem. Teaching them to dance in tutus? Probably not that far-fetched.

The paddock that was meant to become Owen's new workplace was a new fixture, only finished a couple of weeks ago. Mr. Masrani wanted to go through the main issues that could arise. Owen went there yesterday to make a list of the weak points of the structure he thought was a good idea to bring up. He was still not entirely clear on what exactly he was supposed to do, but Hoskins assured him they had a program in place and there still was time.

The afternoon was scorching hot, the humidity plastering Owen's hair to his head when they arrived at the paddock. He inhaled deeply, his eyes narrowed against the sun. Trailing behind him, Barry waved at someone on the other side of the paddock, and just then, another car appeared from the road – a sleek silver Mercedes, sparkling-clean and shiny.

"I'll go find Hoskins," Barry said, starting toward a small hangar of a building that housed the office and the rec room with a couple of couches and a fridge.

Owen nodded, and headed to meet the boss.

xoox

The raptors had nothing to do with the park, but after their meeting regarding the budget and then a trip to the lab where Henry Wu walked them through the Indominus Rex project – the newest attraction Simon requested for not so long ago, he asked her to drive him to meet with the InGen team because they could squeeze going through the forecast for the next quarter into the time it took them to get to the paddock and back.

This was the last thing Claire needed today – she had a pile of bills from contractors to sort out and an inbox that could explode any moment if she didn't go through her emails ASAP, but it wasn't like she could say no, either. Hence the drive down the narrow winding road toward the other end of the island and wasting her precious time.

Her phone started to ring just as Claire parked in the shade of the trees surrounding the newest structure built specifically for the InGen's project.

"I'm sorry, I have to…" she began apologetically, looking at Zara's name and praying it wasn't an emergency.

"Go ahead," Simon waved his hand casually as he pushed the door open. "Join us whenever you can."

Claire nodded hastily and pressed Accept, her mind instantly miles away from this place. As she listened to Zara tell her about one of the guests who planned to file a complaint after dropping his phone into the pool – which obviously wasn't the park's fault – she peered out the windshield, taking in the tall concrete walls and the contractors in hard hats milling around, waiting for the final instructions.

She sank back against her seat, her fingers tapping absently on the steering wheel. The guest were to be negotiated with, she explained to Zara. Of course, they were not going to buy him a new phone, but they could probably offer something to him, like a free hour in a SPA, maybe some merch. She told Zara to find someone from Public Relations and send them to deal with it before negative Yelp reviews started coming in. No one would care it was the guy's clumsiness that got him in this mess – bad rep was bad rep, and Claire couldn't afford it, whatever the cost.

Afterwards, she lingered for a few more minutes to check her email, and when her only other option was to maybe listen to the radio, she finally stepped out, immediately assaulted with a wave of hot air that made breathing if a little uncomfortable.

Claire recognized the stocky form of Vic Hoskins who was now following Simon up the stairs to the catwalk running around and across the paddock, two handlers trailing behind them. She glanced down at her black pumps and then at the grated stairs and sighed. Had she known she'd need a more appropriate footwear today…. She'd probably try to find a way to wiggle out of being here.

Her phone pinged with the message from Zara, and Claire scanned at quickly as she walked, the gravel crunching under the soles of her Manolo Blanks.

Above her, Hoskins was explaining something to Simon who hummed now and then, listening to him as Claire climbed up the stairs, hoping she wouldn't twist her ankle or break a heel, or do something else equally exciting. She stepped onto the bridge, teetering slightly on her tiptoes, the wind whipping her hair in her face, and finally tore her gaze away from the screen on her phone.

The men stood stark in the middle of the walkway, gesturing toward the walls of the paddock, their voices muffled by the breeze and the thundering waves crushing against the rocks some two hundred feet away from them. The place looked a lot like the Indominus Rex's enclosure, and thus not particularly interesting.

Claire started toward them as a dark-skinned man she'd never seen before, probably one of the new employees that Zara had mentioned earlier, said something to Hoskins who nodded and jerked his chin toward the man on his left, his back turned to her. His dark hair was ruffled by the wind and his hands were resting habitually on his hips as he nodded in response to something.

Simon saw her and gave her a small wave, motioning for her to come over.

Hoskins's gaze darted to her in mild disinterest and the black man glanced quickly over his shoulder, his lips quirking ever so slightly in acknowledgement more than anything else. The other man didn't look at her at all. He did, however, turn to Hoskins—

And Claire froze in her tracks, her hand reaching automatically for the railing and gripping it tight while her heart plummeted all the way down to the ground.

He'd changed. Not much, but enough for her to miss the subtle mannerism she wouldn't have before. His shoulders were wider, the hair darker and shorter than she remembered, and the beard… She had never seen him with a beard before, unless the morning stubble counted for one. But if there was one person in this world she would have recognized even after a hundred years, it was Owen Grady. And here he was, standing right before her, on the island in South America – the last place where she'd ever imagined running into him.

It was a mistake, Claire thought instantly. A trick of light and heat.

"Claire, come here, I want you to hear this," Simon called out, his voice quiet through the blood rush in her ears.

And then Owen finally turned, his eyes landing on her. For a second, his gaze almost slid right past her, and she thought he wouldn't recognize her. Until he did, his eyes widening, the easy half-smile slipping off his face as he watched her take one tentative step toward them, and then another, Claire desire to fling herself over the railing reflecting on his face.

Breathe, she told herself, forcing her lips to form into a small, polite smile as she finally looked away from him, choosing to focus on Simon instead. Hell, even Hoskins with his usual leering would do. Just not—

"Claire, you know Vic," Simon said meanwhile, oblivious to how she was practically catatonic, her hand clasped so tight around her phone she could snap it in half. "This is Barry, um…"

"Dupont," the dark-skinned man with a bright smile offered quickly, his face open, his eyes curious on Claire. She took his hand, squeezing it briefly in a greeting.

"And this is-"

"Owen Grady," Owen said, his voice low, and maybe it was just Claire, but she could swear it broke a little.

He didn't offer her his hand, though, only a curt nod, which she acknowledged with the one of her own, barely glancing at him at all. It was impossible to ignore his presence though, as if his closeness was suffocating. It was unnerving to feel him stand next to her, hear his voice. Awash with the memories, she spent the next half an hour in a haze, nodding now and then and hoping that whatever Simon was telling her didn't require any other kind of reaction.

Claire sighed with relief when they finally wrapped the meeting up, and the two of them headed toward her car, her palms clammy and her hands shaking. Claire resisted the urge to look over her shoulder, make sure Owen was actually there because a part of her still believe it was some kind of delusion. The man she hadn't see for almost half of her life, the man she'd been _married_ to for two weeks – how could he be here?

"Claire?"

She snapped her head up to find Simon watch her with a mixture of puzzlement and concern.

"I'm sorry," she offered him a quick, nervous smile. "There was, ah… an incident at the resort, I've got to…" she trailed off, fighting the urge to pass the hell out as she fumbled with the keys and started the car.

xoox

"What was that?" Barry paused beside Owen who was still standing on the catwalk, watching the silver Mercedes turn around and disappear behind the trees.

"Huh?" Owen hummed, barely registering the other man's presence.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Barry pointed out, following Owen's gaze. "You know her?"

Absently, Owen rubbed the back of his neck, his mind blank from shock. "That's my ex-wife."

 **To be continued...**

* * *

 **A/N:** Hope this was fun! Please let me know what you think :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note** : Thanks for the feedback and your nice words, guys! I had way too many ideas for this story so the first part probably felt a bit bumpy because of it, but hopefully it'll be a smooth sailing from now on :) There's a point to everything that happens, I promise.

* * *

Owen slammed the power generator with his hand and cursed under his breath. The thing was working perfectly fine for the past five days, but this morning, it suddenly started to cough and sputter, and then it went dead, and even after kneeling beside it for nearly three hours now, he had no idea what was wrong. He might have to call the park's maintenance crew, he was starting to think now, not sure of what frustrated him more – the lack of electricity in his already plain house, or the idea of having to turn to Masrani Global for help.

The park meant Claire, or the possibility of dealing with Claire, seeing as how she was the big boss and all that, and his mind still refused to accept the fact that she found her way to the same piece of land in the middle of the ocean as he, the impossibility of it unfathomable.

In the three days that passed since their encounter at the paddock, Owen couldn't shake off the feeling that he somehow fell through a door leading to the past, and now it stood wide open, its lock broken. He wanted to slam it shut again, barricade it with a brick wall and free himself from the hold of his memories once again, but the harder he tried, the deeper he kept being sucked into everything Owen had long learned not to think about.

It took him five years to stop seeing her majestic green eyes in his dreams, to stop hearing her laughter, feel the weight of her body pressed lazily to his, taste her kisses that used to render him breathless and lightheaded. And even longer than that to stop seeing her in every red-haired woman he'd spot on the street, until there was nothing left. No pain, no heart-wrenching memories, no wistfulness – just numbness he welcomed gratefully, feeling free at last. That summer 16 years ago was a beautiful dream, the one he wished could last, but with time, it started to fade, feel less real, and he grew used to being okay with it.

Until three days ago….

Owen straightened up abruptly and kicked the toolbox shut, pulling his phone out of the pocket of his pants. The day – just like any other day in this place so far – was uncomfortably hot, beads of sweat glistening on his forehead and rolling down his spine, making his shirt stick to his back. He could keep on trying to fix the damned thing until he had a heat stroke, or until he electrocuted himself, or he could dial one number—

Ten minutes later, a sound of approaching vehicle made him snap his head up, tearing his attention away from Angry Birds on his phone. If this was the maintenance team, they were fast, Owen could admit that much. Granted, it could've been Barry with a six-pack of beer, which was a very appealing thought, especially now that everything in his fridge was about to go bad if the generator problem wasn't fixed in the next hour.

It wasn't Barry.

A sleek grey Mercedes that appeared on the road was unmistakable, although Owen hoped against all hope that it wasn't who he thought it was. Maybe everyone around here had the same cars, he tried to reason with himself. Maybe he would get lucky just this once.

Fat chance.

Her Mercedes, clean and shiny, looked out of place here, near his shabby bungalow surrounded by the wild overgrowth of nature that was nothing like meticulously trimmed lawns and neat palm trees at the resort, and watching Claire climb out of it, her heels digging into the soft soil of what he considered his front yard, made his stomach churn. In her designer suite and with her impeccable hairdo, she didn't belong anywhere in his life, period.

"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Owen asked flatly as he uncurled from his sitting position on the porch steps, hidden from the blazing sun in the shade of his house.

"Mr. Grady…" Claire started in a tight voice, spotting him after a moment or two.

She'd spent the last few days trying to convince herself she wasn't going crazy. In the years following their split-up after a few flimsy weeks of a ridiculous summer romance, she looked for him in every face, her heart jumping whenever the phone in her college apartment would ring, her breath catching each time she'd get a letter mailed to her name and not to 'The resident'. Despite everything, she hoped that whatever they had, whatever they could have, was salvageable still, holding on to something that probably never was there in the first place. Now, it seemed so foolish and naïve, almost embarrassingly so.

And yet, coming face to face with Owen after all those years had rattled her more than she was willing to admit, old memories she didn't know were still lurking in her mind resurfacing with enough force to knock the ground from under her feet and leave her gasping for air. The feeling was unfamiliar and uncomfortable, amplified by a forgotten longing she thought she'd long had under control. Being proven wrong was not just an uncharted territory. It was a middle of a goddamn Bermuda Tringle, for all she knew.

They needed to talk, that much was clear. And as much as Claire hated the idea – or was unnerved by it, at the very least – there was no way they could both live and work on Isla Nublar and pretend that the other one wasn't somewhere here as well. She half-hoped and half-feared Owen would be the one to take the first step, her heart skipping a beat every time the door to her office would open. Until it got too much to bear. Well, if anyone was going to be a grown up about this whole situation and deal with it accordingly, she figured it'd have to be her.

Standing before him now, however, shattered her resolve. She had to make a conscious effort not to turn around, get back in her car, and drive until there were enough miles between them to allow her to start breathing again. The tight grip of her past was almost more than she could handle.

"Owen," he corrected her, quirking an eyebrow in that not quite amused way, the crooked smile not touching his eyes that remained sharp and appraising on her, if a little more cynical than she appreciated. "I know every freckle of your body, Claire. I don't think the formalities are necessary."

Something flashed in her eyes – anger, dare? Owen couldn't tell. She pursed her lips together into a thin line for a few moments, her chin tipped up stubbornly. She didn't look away, didn't blush. Didn't seem to be particularly impressed with his comment, either. It was like this new Claire Dearing was an entirely different Claire from the one that he knew. He shouldn't have been surprised perhaps, he thought. Half a lifetime was a long time.

It caught him off guard nonetheless. Everything about her was familiar, and yet so different it was terrifying. Where there used to be softness, he could see nothing but thorns and sharp edges now, her expression cold and uncompromising.

"Very well," Claire nodded. She paused in front of him and looked around, taking in his small bungalow and patches of muddy puddles left by a recent rain, surprised beyond herself. Was InGen really out of accommodation space? Surely they could've tried harder for someone one Owen's caliber – she'd gathered from Simon he was sort of a big deal. Not that _that_ sounded plausible. She cleared her throat. "Owen."

His lips twitched humorlessly. "What are you doing here?"

"I manage the operations of the park," she responded simply as if it was a common knowledge and something he should've been aware of. He probably should have, except he avoided thinking and talking about her to the best of his ability. "And, considering _our_ circumstances, I just thought we should talk."

Owen nodded even though it wasn't what he asked, exactly. What he wanted to know was what in hell brought her here when he was doing such a good fucking job at avoiding her.

He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants, squaring his shoulders almost on instinct, and finally allowed himself to give her a proper once-over, taking note of her undoubtedly expensive pantsuit and black strappy high-heeled shoes. A gold necklace around her neck and a matching bracelet around her wrist. It was her hair that threw him off – golden waves that used to fall down almost to her waist were now chin-long and perfectly straight.

She looked like she owned the world.

"Shoot," he offered generously, adding as an afterthought, "And for the record, I had no idea you'd be here."

Claire snorted and leveled him with a steady look. "Of course you didn't. If you did, you'd sign up for Peace Corps or something else equally important."

"Yeah, well, if _you_ knew I was coming here, you'd divorce me again just for the hell of it," he fired back with a shrug.

She hummed. "We were not divorced, our marriage was annulled. In the eyes of the law, we were barely married at all."

Owen chucked and stepped away from her, heading toward the workbench near the porch – an excuse to move away from her, and maybe hide a slight tremor in his hands. For all the changes in her appearance, Claire smelled the same – a delicate scent of vanilla mixed with something light and floral, and there was only so much he could do to stop himself from reaching over to brush his thumb to the dusting of freckles on her cheekbone.

"Barely married," he echoed. "That's cute. Mind if I borrow it for my OkCupid profile?"

Claire followed him, her arms folded over her chest. "I'm surprised you have to ask. Usually you just do whatever you want without any regard for the opinion of the others."

"It's called personal growth," he beamed at her, stopping abruptly and turning around, nearly causing Claire to bump into him. "You should try it."

She took an involuntary step back, still almost pressed against him, and jerked her chin up. He seemed taller, she noted absently. Hardly possible though, but maybe it was an additional hundred pounds of solid muscles that made him seem particularly imposing.

If he was trying to intimidate her by invading her personal space though, she was not inclined to let him have it his way. It was ridiculous and childish and petty, but she was suddenly overcome with adamant determination to make it perfectly clear that she wasn't unaccustomed to dealing with people far more impressive than him without batting an eyelash. He might as well tone it down, for the futility of the show if nothing else.

"Wow, I did not see _that_ coming," Claire noted, regaining her composure and holding his gaze, one eyebrow arched elegantly.

"You'd be surprised," Owen promised.

Her lips formed into a chilly smile. "Hardly. We breed dinosaurs here. There are very few things in the world that still surprise me."

He smirked, then turned away from her and busied himself with rearranging some junk on the workbench, more out of need to do something with himself than anything else. "Wanna bet?"

Claire ignored his question. "I just wanted to make sure we can treat our _situation_ like adults, is all."

"I can if you can," he assured her boldly, his eyes narrowed slightly when he glanced at her.

"I can if _you_ can," she retorted.

"Fine."

"Fine," she echoed.

"Great." Owen gave her another measured look. "Now, if you aren't here to fix my generator-"

Claire pursed her lips into a thin line, never breaking the eye contact. "I'll leave you to your devices, Mr. Grady." She swept the clearing with another glance and pointedly wrinkled her nose, pleased to see it set his teeth on edge. "Looks like you have your hands full."

"As full as they can be," he agreed, his ears catching the sound of another engine approaching, and this time it hopefully was the maintenance crew.

"It was a pleasure to see you again," she finished formally, like he was nothing but another faceless business partner to her, everything about her voice perfectly polite, composed, and entirely detached.

"Oh, the pleasure was all mine," Owen offered her a wicked grin. "Don't be a stranger, Claire."

"I most definitely will be."

On that, she turned around and walked away from him, never looking back.

She got in her car, slamming the door so hard a flock of birds took off the nearest tree with loud screeches, disappearing in the bright blue sky, and then she floored the gas pedal, eager to get away from this place and this man as far as she possibly could. She could feel him watch her too, her skin tingling under Owen's gaze, her hands shaking.

Claire passed by the maintenance truck heading toward the bungalow – what did he say about his generator? – and then hit the brakes hard when her vision got too blurry to see anything and her chest turned too tight to breathe. The car stopped abruptly, her whole body jerking forward. That selfish, self-centered jerk… She dropped her face in her hands and let the tears she'd long through had dried out flow.

xoox

The phone call came around midnight a week later – a week that Owen spent in countless seminars on policies and codes of conduct related to his program along with a bunch of other people involved in it, most of them taking place at the resort facilities reserved for special events.

He'd seen Claire in the corridors a few time, always either on the phone, or talking to someone or another, looking like the world would fall apart if she paused long enough to take a breath. She either didn't notice him, or pretended that she didn't, which left him both grateful and irritated at the same time. Now that he knew that she was here, a part of him couldn't help but want to get in her face as much as possible, crack this carefully constructed mask she was wearing. And yet the rest of him couldn't get far enough away from her as fast as he could. Simply knowing she was in the same building as he was making his blood run faster, and he couldn't go back to feeling that way. Never.

All things considered, those briefings and meetings were a welcome distraction. And now it was time.

It was the lab calling. The eggs were about to hatch and he needed to get his ass there ASAP. Henry Wu, a scientist behind the whole thing, explained to Owen that one of the most important things about this project, if not _the_ most important one, was Owen's imprinting on the raptors. He needed to be there when they were born, needed to be the first person they'd see and form an emotional bond with. A complete trust, Wu explained.

Owen tumbled out of bed, groggy and disoriented from sleep. He turned on the reading lamp, groaning under his breath when the unexpectedly bright light flooded the room, blinding him for a few moments. He grabbed his pants from the chair where he'd left them the previous night and then quickly pulled his shirt on, his head nearly getting stuck in one of the sleeves in his haste.

His stomach dropped. This was it, he thought as he paused in the middle of the room, this was real. Not just the talk and theories. In fifteen minutes, he would officially be in for a long haul, and the idea made his head spin. He took a deep breath. This was it.

He rushed out of the house, jumping off the porch steps on his way to the car.

The lab was brightly lit even at this time of the night, the techs buzzing around the incubators. Henry Wu was there, too. He spotted Owen and waved at him to come over, his face serious but not worried, and Owen relaxed minutely. He weaved his way through the crowd in white coats chatting in low, hushed voices, neither of them paying attention to him.

"Ah, Mr. Grady," Wu offered him a small, fleeting smile, relieved to see Owen. "Sorry to have disturbed you at this hour."

"No problem," Owen cleared his throat and belatedly reached over to smooth down his raging bedhead, unruly curls sticking out at odd angles. It was odd to miss his NAVY buzz cut.

"It wasn't supposed to happen until tomorrow afternoon," Wu explained as he led Owen to the incubator in the far end of the lab designed as an open-space type of environment. "But I guess they have their own idea of when the time is right." He tried to sound upbeat and excited, but Owen could tell he was just as anxious, what with this being something entirely different from the regular affairs of the park. "Here they are."

Owen had seen this before. On his second day on the island, Vic Hoskins brought him here to introduce him to Wu and show him four long eggs sitting in a crate under a dome lid of an incubator meant to provide the best conditions for the growth and development of the animals.

Back then, Owen simply nodded, more curious about the rest of this place and its sterile whiteness and the conversations floating around him that he could barely understand than in the eggs. However, this time, he could see small cracks zigzagging along mated gray shells, the tiny tremor that meant the animals' attempts at trying to break free. His lips stretched into a smile, the sleepless night forgotten. This was fascinating. This was so beyond everything he could ever imagine it was making him lightheaded.

He straightened up after a few moments, tuning to Wu again. "So, what do I do now?"

The scientist shrugged. "Wait. You need to be the first human they interact with. Otherwise…" He trailed off, and glanced around at the other lab staff. "Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Grady."

Owen nodded if a little numbly, and stepped closer to the incubator when Wu walked away to tend to other business at hand.

It was a slow process, the eggshells too hard for the raptors to climb out of. But about an hour later, a first snout popped out of the crack, blue lines running along its long nose and down its neck, its fingers flexing as it pushed more of the shell away, falling awkwardly out of it. The next moment, its eyes fixed on Owen on the other side of Plexiglas. His heart squeezed fiercely, protectiveness mixed with wonder flooding his mind. Just knowing that Velociraptors were some of the most vicious species that ever existed didn't change the fact this little creature before his eyes was the most perfect little thing he'd ever seen.

She – he'd been told all species were female – uncurled from a ball and waggled her tail a bit, testing her ability to do so, wobbly and unsteady on tiny feet. Her nostrils twitched, small claws flexing, as she blinked, waiting for the world to come into full focus.

"Hi," Owen mouthed soundlessly, a wondrous smile on his face. She couldn't hear him perhaps, but he didn't care one bit. Instead, he pressed his palm to the Plexiglas, promising to himself to take the best care of this little creature, feeling inexplicably proud of her awkward movements and cautious curiosity.

It took some time for the rest of the eggs to follow suit, and when all four raptors were out of confines of their shells, croaking and snapping their tiny teeth at one another, he clicked the incubator open like Wu showed him, reaching carefully for the one that hatched first. The one with blue lines on her body.

Her skin warm and pleasantly leathery, she was roughly the size of his palm now, and the moment Owen picked her up, she sank her teeth into his thumb the way a kitten would. He didn't feel a thing, except for the frustration radiating from the animal at her own inability to pierce Owen's skin.

He chuckled softly, running his index finger over her head and down her spine. "I'm taking it you guys might be hungry."

xoox

"Is everything okay, Claire?" Zara asked her one afternoon.

"What?" Claire's attention snapped back to here and now and she tore her gaze away from the panoramic view outside the window, turning to her assistant sitting across her wide desk. "Why?"

"Well, we were going through your agenda and you kind of spaced out."

"Right." Claire cleared her throat. "Where were we?"

"Renew the contract with Starbucks," Zara read to her promptly, giving Claire a puzzled look.

If anything, Claire Dearing was never distracted. Hell, a few months ago she was right here, with a fever that threatened to set her fancy leather chair on fire, handling the negotiation with one of the vendors better than anyone in the right health would, and they both knew it.

But the fact was that after a few weeks of pointedly ignoring the existence of Owen Grady on Isla Nublar and doing her absolute best not to think about him no matter what, she finally managed to convince herself she was getting somewhere with this plan – she did, after all, have about 16 years of experience of doing just that. Until this afternoon.

Claire was showing one of the potential investors around, a man who was still uncertain about pouring his funds into one of the park's projects, finishing the tour in the lab so Henry Wu could answer any of the questions on the topics she, personally, wasn't 100% versed in. And there he was, in the corner of the lab, completely oblivious to the guests of the park behind the glass wall, staring open-mouthed at the incubators and the lab technicians working at other stations. He was crouched by the cage used by the lab for the newly hatched animals until they were old enough to fend for themselves in their outdoor enclosures.

The raptors, she assumed. That was what Mr. Masrani said about the nature of his project, right?

Claire paused, almost despite herself, while her companion gaped around at the miracles of science as she watched Owen, his expression gleeful and delighted, like he was looking at the most precious and miraculous treasure in the world. And like on cue, Claire's heart skipped a beat in that familiar way she hoped she would never experience again. She'd seen that look before, the easy and relaxed smile seared into her memory. Somehow, it unsettled her even more than their ridiculous fight.

Okay, if she were completely honest with herself, everything about this situation was unsettling, and the tug in her stomach she used to live with back before everything between the two of them fell apart wasn't making it any better. He had no right to still have this kind of impact on her. She made it her personal crusade to ensure no one ever did.

It wasn't even the fact that she saw Owen that kept her mind wandering now, but watching him pull one of the raptors the size of his hand out of the cage as he talked softly to it while the lizard-looking creature wagged its tail that left her feeling like someone punched her in solar plexus. Now, Claire could barely remember how the rest of her meeting went, couldn't recall seeing the man out or making her way back to the office, her mind blank.

There had to be a way for them to make it work, to keep it professional and simply soldier on with their respective jobs, but what it was she had no idea.

Claire straightened up in her chair and clasped her hands together, all business. "Call them, ask for a conference call," she told Zara. "I want to know if they're still okay with the initial terms of the contract before we sign any addendums." She tapped her fingers on the table. "Also, set up a meeting with Eric from Finance to discuss the budget forecast, and when the marketing sends the new advertisement campaign materials, forward them to me immediately."

Zara marked her requests in her phone. "Sure. Anything else?" The question was almost cautious, like she expected Claire to float away any moment, what with her head being up in the clouds.

Claire offered her a small, reassuring smile. "No, that would be all for now. Thank you."

Zara nodded and stood up. "Well, you know where to find me." Still, she lingered for a few moments by Claire's desk. "Are you sure… Coffee, maybe?"

Tempting, Claire thought, but no, otherwise her brain would probably explode.

She shook her head. "I'm good, really."

 _Except my biggest mistake ever somehow ended up here, of all places, but sure, everything is awesome_.

When the door closed behind Zara, Claire slumped wearily in her chair, rubbing her temples, trying to push the headache away. It was ironic, really. She built a wall around her heart and put an ocean between herself and her past, and now said past had caught up with her, living mere two miles away from her, like a sucker-punch from fate – not that she believed in any such thing.

xoox

They were marvelous, that much Owen knew for sure. Little wonders.

At only 3 weeks old, the raptors already had fully developed personalities he could do nothing about, and frustration at their stubbornness aside, he couldn't help but feel dumbfounded and astonished by it.

Blue, Charlie, Delta and Echo – InGen allowed him to name them and he chose to follow the Naval phonetic alphabet, with a minor exception for Blue who got her name for her distinctive colouring. She was the most willful one, a definite Beta to his Alpha, and determined to keep it that way. Echo was the most mellow one of them all while Delta never stopped challenging Blue's authority in the pack, and Charlie mostly seemed to be happy to simply be left alone so long as there was a snack.

They were resilient and strong, and for now still dependent on Owen, still remembering him feeding them the processed meat in the lab when their jaws were not strong enough yet for proper chewing. Yet they hardly ever stopped testing the boundaries, pushing him, establishing their own rules.

They were not pets, of course, and Owen knew that soon enough their instincts would overcome their loyalty, but for now he reveled in their attachment to him. His arms were covered in scratches and bites that were coming from affection rather than hostility so far. At this point, they were barely toddlers – still clumsy and uncoordinated on occasion, still growing into their large heads and fast reflexes they hadn't quite had any control over yet.

They were a damn good distraction for sure. In fact, between scheduled feedings and 'babyproofing' the paddock to make sure the raptors wouldn't wiggle out between the cage bars, he barely had time to take a shower and change, the sleep not even an option on most nights. He was exhausted, but in a good way, too. sometimes, he could go for two whole hours without thinking about Claire.

"They don't look like murder machines." Barry noted absently as he and Owen watched the raptors chase one another through the bars of the harness cage.

"They will be before they turn one," Owen responded, watching them with unmasked fondness, wondering absently if he was going to still feel the same way about them when they were dangerous enough to bite his head off in a blink of an eye. "Truth be told, no one knows at what age they become mature. Right now, they're just babies. God knows what they'll be capable of when they're fully grown."

"Not looking forward to their teenage phase, that's for sure," Barry chuckled.

They were not supposed to start any actual training for at least another week to allow the animals to get comfortable in the paddock. Little was known about their learning capabilities yet, and as eager Owen was to start working with them, he also couldn't help feeling worried.

With seals and dolphins, his objectives were perfectly clear but now… Even Simon Masrani was uncharacteristically vague about the end purpose of this project, and if the last few weeks were any indication, he could already tell the raptors were going to be crazy smart. It wasn't a bad thing, of course, but it was a dangerous one. They were going to challenge his authority and they were going to do it artfully. And right now, he wasn't sure he was going to win.

"Yeah, well…" Owen grinned. "I think curfew would be hard to enforce."

Barry shook his head, amused. "Did you even have a day off since you started?" He asked then, eyeing Owen with a mixture of amazement and respect.

"Don't need one." Hands clasped around thick bars, Owen frowned at Delta digging her small teeth into Echo's tail. He was tempted to shoo them apart, make sure no one got hurt, but they needed to learn to stand up for themselves even against one another.

He didn't need a goddamn day off. The main perk of putting in 90-hour work weeks was never having any time or energy left to think about Claire, or the fact that she was somewhere here, or about a million other things he'd bottled up over a decade ago and that were now spilling into his mind in abundance. It was easier to deal with them when he had something else to focus on, even when that _something_ was being bitten and scratched by a pack of prehistoric beasts.

"Don't need, huh?" Barry coked his eyebrows.

"I think it's feeding time," Owen muttered, pushing back from the cage before the conversation veered off the in the direction he wasn't sure he wanted to take. Mindful of Barry's curiosity after his impulse confession weeks ago, he still was less than willing to discuss it.

Also, it really was feeding time.

xoox

The list of Claire's duties was a mile and a half long. Approving, supervising, managing, changing, and overseeing anything and everything in Jurassic World. One might have thought it was an impossible task for one person, but Claire was more than eager to shift some of those things around in order to make them all fit properly in her schedule. It made her feel grounded, _in control_.

Babysitting, however, was not one of them, and whenever she was faced with the need to push people to take on basic responsibilities, it always left her mildly irritated. Yes, she was well aware that not everything always went the right way, but surely, they could do the job they were hired to do, couldn't they? It wasn't even about the 'control issues' her sister insisted she had in excess so much as about trust – if she couldn't rely on people to commit to the most basic tasks, how could she be sure this whole place wouldn't fall apart the moment she looked the other way?

Her fingers flexed on the steering wheel as she took a right turn toward the InGen facilities located in the northeast part of the island, holding on to the frustration lest it give way to panic that already started to creep in on her.

Claire loved her job. What she wasn't a fan of was an annual meeting of the Board of Directors where Simon Masrani was expected to present the results of the past year – both financial and statistical – in order to secure funding for the successful programs and assimilation of the unsuccessful ones into something else.

If she were to take a wild guess, she'd agree that 90% of her work-related stress came from the preparation for said meeting. The divisions of Masrani Global located elsewhere were responsible for their own data, but the park was massive, its operations extensive, and it was up to her to compile them into a proper and clear picture. And now he wanted her to take over InGen's reports as well, all because Hoskins had an excellent background in the military, but his marketing and accounting skills were hardly impressive. Which, frankly, wasn't Claire's problem, but she failed to find a polite way to express this particular notion to her boss.

Suffice it was to say, Claire didn't look forward to not sleeping for two weeks, buried under the piles of documents no one bothered to straighten up properly. But just as she started to see the light in the end of this nightmarish tunnel, it turned out that a chunk of data was missing. She shouldn't have been surprised that it was Owen who didn't provide the required information, and she wasn't. The man had little respect for everyone else's job, and now she had to drive there and talk to him, waste the time she wasn't going to get back. This thought alone set Claire's teeth on edge, and that was even before they so much as said two words to one another, which wasn't going to end well, if their history was any indication.

On the bright side, if she got all the information now, she'd be done with the whole thing by the end of the weekend, provided she'd give up on the rest of her life, of course, but Claire had long learned that as far as this job was concerned, a sacrifice here and there was worth it.

So long as she had everything she needed.

Claire rounded a bend in the road and stopped near what served as an office. As usual, the paddock was a boiling pot of activity, a dozen men milling around, talking loudly to one another over the sounds of the waves crushing against the cliffs nearby. She pushed the door open and stepped into stifling heat. This close to the water, the air smelled like salt and seaweed, the breeze almost fresh on her cheeks, minus the humidity that made her feel like she'd jumped into the surf.

"Excuse me," she stopped a man passing by her, a bucket of what she hoped wasn't raw meat in his hand. "Where can I find Owen Grady?"

He gave her a curious look, as if puzzled to see her here, and then swept the clearing in front of the paddock with a long glance, his eyes narrowed against the merciless glare of the sun. Then he jerked his chin toward the stairs leading to the catwalk.

"Up there, probably."

Claire thanked him, starting to feel nauseated from the smell of whatever was in that bucket, and then headed toward where he pointed, hoping to get this over with in record time. Hopefully today, if she knew anything about Owen.

She was about to step onto the grated staircase, worried about breaking the heels of her new Steve Maddens – granted, she didn't plan on traipsing around the paddocks when she left her suite this morning – when the footsteps above her head made her stop in her tracks. She looked up when a shadow fell over her only to see Owen on his way down. He paused for a second, his eyebrows pulling together at the sight of her.

Claire stepped aside when he reached the ground.

"Mr. Grady." Chin tipped up, she added another layer of formality to her voice. "A word?"

Owen hummed under his breath. "Two even," he allowed graciously. "But then really have stuff to do."

She bristled at his attitude, fighting the urge to respond in kind. "I understand that you're a very busy man," she said dryly, her voice implying that in her opinion he was anything but. "And I have no intention to keep you away from your…. Whatever it is you're doing. But you haven't filed any progress reports for the past month and I need them."

Owen started toward the harnesses. He pulled a handkerchief from the back pocket of his pants and wiped his hands with it. "Hoskins has them."

She followed him, teetering slightly on the gravel under her feet. "No, he does not, otherwise-" _I wouldn't be talking to you_ , she wanted to say, but had it in her to bite her tongue before the words slipped out of her mouth. As fun as their insulting matches were, she really didn't have any time for this nonsense right now. "Otherwise I'd have them. It's kind of important."

He stopped and turned to her, beads of sweat gathered under his hairline. "I'll have a look at them tonight," he offered after a moment or two.

Claire glared at him darkly. "Can you do it now?"

"I'm sort of in the middle of something," he brushed her off.

"I can see that, but as I said, it's important-"

Hands on his hips, he regarded her with a hint of irritation, which undoubtedly mirrored in Claire's eyes. "Look, as much as I'd love to jump on command just because you ask me to, _Ms. Dearing_ ," he made a dramatic pause to accentuate her name, "I've got work to do-"

"I'm afraid you don't understand," Claire interjected firmly, adding an edge of authority to her voice. "It's not a request."

Owen tilted his head to his shoulder, both vaguely aware of the audience around them and not particularly caring about the spectacle that the two of them were. "Is that so?"

She glared at him some more, the struggle almost comical on her face, and then let out a frustrated sigh. "Look, I thought we agreed to handle this… unfortunate situation in a professional manner."

"And I am," Owen promised her. "But you're not my boss."

Claire frowned. "In this instance, I am. Besides, I am your superior, regardless of the context."

"If by superior you mean trying to order me around – yeah, I've noticed. Funny how some things never change."

She huffed. "Do you _have_ to make it personal?"

Owen's jaw dropped. " _I_ am making it personal? You won't use my name, _Claire_ ," he hissed, leaning closer to her until their faces were only inches apart.

"I don't see why I should be bringing a mistake from a decade and a half ago into my job?" She asked flatly, unfazed by the fire burning in his gaze.

"Is that what it was?" Owen asked her in a low voice.

Claire's eyes darted around, taking note of a few people who stopped whatever they were doing to try and catch snippets of their conversation. "You know it is. Do we have to discuss it now?"

Owen's eyebrow quirked as he started to walk away from her. "You brought it up."

"I am just trying to get my files," she countered, following him toward the office. "Do you really think I want to be here?"

"Geez, Claire, way to be subtle!" He stuffed his handkerchief into the back pocket of his pants.

Fuming, she balled her hands into fists. "You want to do it that way? Fine! You were the one who ended it between us. Want to discuss _that_?"

He stopped and whirled around, his eyes aglow with anger. "That's not how I remember it."

"Well, it wasn't me who made a life-altering decision without talking to you," she spat, skidding to a sudden halt in front of him.

"I was neck-deep in debt! You know what my father left me when he died? A house that belonged to the bank and a 5-figure worth of loans," Owen snapped, not bothering to keep it quiet any longer, unsaid words bubbling up inside him and pouring over the brim of his composure. "I didn't have a choice."

She let out a harsh laugh and rolled her eyes. "There's always a choice."

"Not then, there wasn't. It wasn't like I killed someone, for Christ's sake! I owed a lot of money-"

"And I was pregnant, Owen," she cut him off.

 **To be continued...**

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 **A/N:** Please review because reviews are love!


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note** : Well, I feel like I totally messed up the last chapter because I'm not good at making decisions, and I apologize for that. I'm going to add the last few lines from the previous part to this one to avoid any further confusion, and with any luck, it'll all make sense. Eventually. Also, yes - 5 parts :) Thanks for all the love, guys! You're the best :)

* * *

"There's always a choice."

"Not then, there wasn't. It wasn't like I killed someone, for Christ's sake! I owed a lot of money-"

"And I was pregnant, Owen," she cut him off.

xoox

Claire didn't remember how she got back in the car. Didn't remember driving either, her mind numb and empty. One moment, she was staring into Owen's eyes, wide with shock, and then somehow, she ended up back in her office, her hands shaking and her heart fluttering feverishly in her ribcage until she was dizzy and nauseated. No one knew, not even her family, and she was adamant to keep it that way. How on earth did she ended up blurting out her little secret at the worst possible moment to the worst possible person was beyond her comprehension.

She meant what she said. It was a mistake. A foolish, childish mistake. Everyone had one or two under their belt, that much she was certain of. That was how people learned.

She and Owen were no different, and he probably knew it too. He had to, she reasoned with herself. What happened between them was… _unavoidable_ , Claire decided at some point. If it wasn't that, there'd be something else. She'd pierce her eyebrow, or get blackout drunk at a frat party, or dye her hair pink. Getting married on a whim was hardy the worst-case scenario, all things considered. They were young and naïve, and utterly stupid, for that matter. For two deliriously happy months, they allowed themselves to believe that anything was possible. There was no crime in that, although there was no reward in it either.

And now… Now she was scared. It frightened her how easily his reappearance in her life threw her off-balance after all those years when she thought she'd put that summer behind, scrapped the faded memories of it out of her mind until there was nothing left. Who knew it could be this easy to fall right back into that black hole all over again?

The door to her office swung open, the handle hitting the opposite wall with a loud bang, and Owen strode in, a determined purpose in his stride, followed by frantic Zara who looked like she was about to have a heart attack.

"Wait, you can't… Claire, I'm sorry-" She started just as Owen said:

"We need to talk." There was no denying that he absolutely meant it.

"It's okay," Claire promised Zara, composing herself – because it wasn't like she didn't see this coming, and after a moment of hesitation, her assistant backed out into the hallway and shut the door quietly behind her, still confused and maybe a little panicked over not be able to bodily stop a 6'2" wall of pure muscle. Frankly, Owen didn't look like anything short of a canon ball, his face uncompromising and his gaze hard and heavy on her, near impossible to hold. She didn't look away though, simply folding her arms on her desk before her. "What can I do for you, Mr. Grady?"

He grimaced. "Cut the crap, Claire. You can't just tell me…. what you told me, and walk away, and-" He was breathing hard, his chest heaving, and it was almost like he'd jogged here all the way from the paddock, high on adrenaline.

"You're right," she interjected firmly and gave him a steady, even look, hoping he wouldn't notice how badly she was trembling all over. "I shouldn't have told you. It slipped."

"Slipped," Owen echoed, disbelieving. "What _happened_?" His voice dropped, growing thicker, his gaze more intense on her, almost piercing. After his theatrical entrance, he didn't dare step toward her, regarding her like she might be dangerous, choosing to hang back by the door instead, which almost required having to raise their voices to be heard.

"Nothing happened," she shrugged, struggling to keep her cool and ignore a wild blood rush in her ears. "You can't just barge into my office as you please, by the way."

It was either her flat tone, or her phenomenal ability to change the subject that left him gaping at her for a few long moments, completely dumbfounded, his jaw practically hanging open.

"Are you for real right now?" Owen asked at last as if he wasn't even sure he was hearing her right.

Claire bristled at the blunt accusation in his voice. She pushed up from her chair, hating to have to look up at him, even though in her own space it almost gave her an illusion of power. Her hands gripped the edge of her desk in what she hoped looked like anger and not a much needed support.

"What do you want from me, Owen?" She demanded, sick of this game of theirs, or dancing around their unresolved issues and other shit she couldn't want to leave behind for good.

"Owen. Not Mr. Grady. That's a first." His short bark of a laugh was sharp and humorless.

"Oh, for Christ's sake!" Claire rolled her eyes.

"I want you to tell me the truth!" He snapped, crossing the distance between them in two quick strides, so furious he was practically shaking, which, surprisingly, only fueled her own frustration. "I want you to stop this bullshit and tell me-"

"I told you the truth!" She yelled, her sudden outburst shocking enough to drain the fight out of him, or at least enough of it to get him to unclench his fists.

"What happened to…" Owen swallowed, giving her an almost cautious once-over, as if somehow expecting to find a bump all those years later. "What happened to the baby?"

Claire pursed her lips into a thin line, torn between telling him to go to hell and maybe calling the security – not because she felt threatened in any way, but because she _could,_ or maybe reminding him that he had no business to know anything about her, period. At this point, they were barely old acquaintances, and as far as she was concerned, she didn't owe him anything.

"Nothing happened," she responded in a cold, detached voice when he was staring to look like he might explode if she didn't say _something_. She straightened up, squaring her shoulders and tipping her chin up, somewhat glad to have the desk between them, the distance that allowed her to breathe. "Miscarriages are apparently a common occurrence in the first trimester. I wish I didn't have to learn it the hard way, but I've made my peace with it a long time ago. Is that it?"

He shoulders slumped as if under a blow.

"Why didn't you tell me?" He asked hoarsely – pleading, not demanding.

"Because I didn't want to," Claire said sharply.

She might have as well slapped him for how Owen stepped back involuntarily, flinching at the brutal honesty she didn't have it in her to dance around anymore, all the pain and fear of the weeks following their split up finally pouring out of her now that the source of them was finally standing right in front of her. And while a part of her did want to soften the truth, she could no longer hold back from smug satisfaction of not having to carry this burden on her own.

"At first I didn't know how to find you, and then I decided not to do it. You _chose_ to leave, Owen," she went when he didn't say anything. "If that baby lived, god help me, I'd love it with all my heart, but you chose to walk away, so don't look at me like you ever had any say in the matter. By the time I found out I was pregnant, it was mine and only mine."

His nostrils flared again like she was waving a red clothe in front of his face. "I told you-"

"Yes, the debts. You told me 16 years too late, thank you very much. All because of some sexist crap," she interjected, both furious and hurt. God, even after all this time... "Back then, I'd have done _anything_ to be with you, I'd walk to the end of the world for you." Claire swallowed, willing her voice not to break. "But not that, not silently accepting your making decisions for me like you owned me. Well, congratulations. Now you have no goddam right to pass the judgement. You've lost it when you threw the _for_ _better, or for worse, for richer, or for poorer_ out the window."

It was a miracle she was still standing, the air between them so electrified Claire thought she'd see sparks flying any second now.

"You told me to fuck off," he spat angrily.

Claire snickered. "I waited for you to call. For months, I waited for you to do something. _Anything_. It wasn't me who decided to ship off to another continent, Owen." She let it sink before continuing, "Whatever happened next is none of your business. You left. End of story."

He clenched his jaw, his eyes narrowed, gaze locked with hers. Not angry anymore, but confused and pained. Regretful. Well, he could join the fucking club, for all she cared. This was her life that he stomped into with the grace of an elephant, her carefully constructed world that he had no right to swoop into and tear apart in his wake.

"What happened to you, Claire?" Owen asked quietly as if he couldn't recognize the person standing before him.

"I grew up." She gave him a calm, measured look, fiercely protecting the storm raging inside her, daring him to disagree.

And god help her, he opened his mouth to do just that. But then someone rapped their knuckles if a little cautiously on the door, and the next moment it opened a crack and Zara poked her head in, looking more than a little uncomfortable to interrupt. Her eyes darted quizzically to Owen before settling on Claire.

"I'm sorry," she started, then cleared her throat. "Mr. Masrani—"

"It's okay, I'll take it from…" Simon stepped around her and into Claire's office. "Oh, I didn't know you had a-" He paused, surprised to find Owen inside, his eyebrows quirked ever so slightly in a silent puzzlement, but then he nodded to Zara, signaling to her that it was fine, and strolled over to Owen. "Mr. Grady." He offered his hand to Owen, and the latter shook it automatically. "I didn't mean to interrupt…"

"It's fine," Claire promised him quickly."Mr. Grady here was just leaving."

Or so she was hoping.

"Ah, no," Simon raised his hand. "Actually, it's very fortunate." If he found Owen's presence in her office unusual or the murderous vibe in the air disconcerting, he had enough tact not to show it. He turned to Claire. "I'm going to the States for a while, my presence is required at the headquarters. And Mr. Hoskins is coming with me." He paused. "I don't want to overwhelm you, Claire, but would it be okay with you to keep an eye on Mr. Grady's Velociraptor project?" His eyes darted toward Owen for a second before fixing inquisitively on Claire.

She opened her mouth to protest – she didn't _know_ what the project was about, she was swarmed with the other work, her whole schedule was so packed she barely had time to breathe, and she could not, under no circumstances, be within a two-mile radius from Owen.

"Of course," she nodded formally, pointedly ignoring Owen who audibly sucked in a sharp breath, undoubtedly as excited about this prospect as she was. "No problem at all, Sir."

Not that saying no was an option.

There was a very thin line between ambition and obsession, and at times, Claire couldn't see it clearly herself, certainly not when her work was concerned. Truth be told, she wasn't even sure she wanted to get to the top, uncertain of what she'd do when she was there, but challenging herself to see how far she could reach was another thing entirely.

At some point, years ago, she promised to herself that she would become utterly invaluable to Masrani Global. Simon's right hand, or sometimes both, if needed. Since then, she could count the number of times she'd said no to his requests on one hand. Projects outside of her scope of duties, sleepless nights developing business strategies, weekends spent poring over the technical aspects of his ideas, taking over someone's work when he had no one else to turn to – she'd done it all. He'd tell her to jump, she'd ask how high.

That was how it worked. Frankly, Claire didn't want to take his place, she was sure of that. But she still wanted to know if she _could_ , and that required complete dedication. Which was why if he wanted her to oversee Owen Grady's work, she would suck it up, put a smile on her face, and soldier on like it was no big deal.

Because it was the only thing Claire knew how to do best.

Simon's shoulders relaxed, the crease between his eyebrows smoothing out instantly. He thanked her profusely and shook Owen's hand again before leaving them be 'to figure out the details between themselves' – a suggestion that nearly left her in a laughing fit. For all she knew, by the time Hoskins came back, they'd probably tear each other's throats out.

Owen clenched his teeth tight, turning to her again. And it was only then that she noticed a heavy silence that settled around them all of a sudden, so loud she could _feel_ the air move in the vents above her head without hearing it.

"You have got to be shitting me," Owen muttered under his breath not without disgust.

Claire turned to him, her chin raised, and leveled him with a flat look, indicating that, first, the conversation was over and, second, she didn't care about his opinion. "I expect your progress reports on my desk by tonight, _Mr. Grady_." She said in a voice that allowed no objection. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"

At that, he turned on his heel and stormed out, slamming the door behind him and making her entire office rattle, the echo of the bang ringing in her ears.

Weak in the knees, she collapsed into her chain, feeling like a deflated balloon.

When was the last time she even thought about that night? A decade at least. Claire made a point to never obsess over it again, her stomach churning whenever she'd allow a sliver of memory to creep into her mind. The pain and blood, and a belated realization of what was happening, her fear and panic, and a desperate hope that it was not over yet, that she could save the tiny wink of life inside her with the power of her will – all mixed into a dangerous combination, running in her system.

Claire was horrified when she found out she was pregnant. Alone and clueless and only 18 years old, she was two weeks into her first semester in college, finally welcoming a distraction from the days leading to it that she spent crying. She thought it was food poisoning or a stomach bug at first, the thing that caused her to throw up for a few days. Something that everyone else happily managed to avoid. She didn't count in that factor at the time, blaming her nausea on cheap food or whatever. It wasn't until it didn't stop after nearly a week that her roommate asked Claire if she was pregnant.

She couldn't have been, Claire told herself. They were young and hormonal, but they were not stupid, and she was meticulous with this kind of stuff. And yet, when she bought a home pregnancy test in the nearby pharmacy, it showed two stripes. Positive. Locked in the bathroom of the tiny apartment she was sharing with a girl from Law School, she stared at it for about half an hour, going from fear to elation to thrill to anticipation until she settled on content. She didn't plan this, and god, didn't want it either, in the grand scheme of things.

Claire clutched her flat belly, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

But it didn't matter now. This was _her_ baby, however surprising and unplanned it was, and she loved it already. In retrospect, she knew she was being stupid. Hell, she didn't even know her way around campus yet. How was she planning to pull off motherhood? But the ever-logical and pragmatic Claire Dearing found herself madly in love with a tiny grey spec on a sonogram she had that very same week.

Until one afternoon several weeks later, the cramps started. Claire disregarded them. Having done some basic reading on the subject already, she knew it wasn't a big deal – her body was adjusting to its new condition. And then, after a few hours, they got worse. By the time she made it back to her apartment, she was bleeding. By then, she already knew what was happening. Hand pressed to her mouth so she wouldn't scream, she dropped her bag in the hallway and stumbled into the bathroom where her roommate found her a while later, sitting on the floor in the shower, crying from pain and exhaustion and loss.

Claire knew that there was a chance it was inevitable. Oddly enough, sometimes a mother and a baby were simply incompatible – a notion she found utterly ridiculous because how could it even be possible? There was science behind it though, proven facts that she couldn't help but respect. And yet, a part of her didn't know how not to blame herself for losing that tiny spec of life that was supposed to be safe and happy with her. Maybe if she'd gone to the hospital sooner, if she'd felt that something was wrong before it was too late because surely she was _supposed_ to know it, right? She was supposed to _feel_ everything.

For months afterwards, she hated Owen more than she ever thought she could – for not being there for her when she needed him more than ever, her own decision to not try to find him seemingly forgotten. And later, when there were no tears left, she stored this memory away and shut it out as best she could.

It was an awful way to grow up, her life flipped upside down again in just a matter of hours. And yet, there was nothing she could do but move on.

Claire snapped her head up at the sound of the opening door, thinking that it was Owen who came back for a second round of their screaming match, but it was only Zara, peeking inside in a little reluctantly. There was no way she missed the yelling before Simon showed up, and now Claire couldn't help but wonder just how much she'd actually heard.

"Yes?" She asked with a plastic smile, hoping Zara couldn't see her quivering lips.

There was a flicker of emotion on Zara's face, curiosity mixed with a slight worry and a sprinkling of puzzlement on top of it. She stepped into Claire's office and cleared her throat, a folder in her hand.

"Mark sent this," she said, waving the folder in the air. HR, if Claire remembered correctly. Amidst dealing with this blast from the past, she completely forgot about the quarterly staff evaluation. "For approval." Claire nodded. "I, um… didn't know you've met."

"Met?" Claire echoed, confused.

"Owen Grady." Now Zara was nearly bursting with questions. "I didn't think you knew each other."

Claire stiffened at the sound of his name. "We don't. What does it matter?"

Zara grimaced a little. "He's the guy I was trying to set you up with."

 _Perfect_ , Claire thought, choosing not to comment. That was just perfect.

xoox

His heart hammering, Owen sped away from the resort, his hands gripping the steering wheel of the park issued jeep so tight he feared he'd either break the goddamn thing, or grow into it, his brain on fire. There was nothing he wanted more than to put his fist through something, like a cement wall, if only to lessen the pain inside him that threatened to splinter his heart into pieces until there was nothing left.

A baby.

 _His_ Claire was pregnant when he left.

 _Because I didn't want to_.

Furious, he smacked his hand on the steering wheel, nearly sending the car into the ditch along one of side roads. It happened so long ago it felt more like another lifetime now than the past he was actually a part of, and yet it stung more than he expected it could. More than he was willing to admit. More than anything ever before.

Shit! He'd missed her so bad. In the weeks and months following their breakup, he couldn't close his eyes without seeing her face. He'd wake up in the middle of the night, certain that he could feel the weight of her body pressed to his as she slept soundly only to realize it was only a dream. It was like he lived in a fog, trapped between the fantasy of what could have been and the harsh reality of his life that consisted of tedious drills, people in uniforms that blended one into another until they were nothing but a faceless gray mass. It both helped him and tore him apart, until his longing reduced to a dull throb, his very essence crossed with scars.

Owen hit the brakes abruptly at the fork in the road, his chest heaving.

The brutal truth was that he honestly had no idea what he'd do if he knew. At the time, he felt like he had no choice – it was either the NAVY, or he'd have to sell his very soul to the devil to get out of the mess he'd found himself in, courtesy of his dad and his substance abuse. On top of everything else, he was a proud little shit who'd much rather die than ask for help or admit that he didn't have to go through any of this alone. As was everyone else at the age of 20, Owen was certain. Except not everyone paid the highest price for their mistakes.

Deep inside he knew that the army was the right choice, but there wasn't a day, a minute in his life when he didn't regret losing Claire. Even when the sharp edges of his pain smoothed with time, there never was a moment when he didn't wish he could go back and work it out somehow. However Claire wanted to, really.

She didn't know it, but he called her, or tried to, his finger usually pressing disconnect before the call could go through. He wrote her, too, when the phones were unavailable, and never sent a single one of the letters, the whole stack still stored as far away from the prying eyes as possible. Would it really changed anything, Owen couldn't help but wonder. Back then, the possibility of a _no_ felt far worse than a wary hope for a _maybe_.

"Shit," he repeated under his breath, and instead of turning right to the paddock, he headed left to the bungalow. Barry was right, he could use a day off. Hell, he could use a 6-month long timeout just to start thinking straight.

Inside, the bungalow was stifling hot, even with the windows wide open, humid air spilling in and finding refuge in the corners until there was no escape from it. And yet it felt good to be holes up in his own tiny corner, away from the rest of the world.

Owen texted to Barry saying that something had come up, which wasn't entirely a lie, grateful for once for the easy start of this goddamn job that he didn't know how he was going to power through anymore, and then turned his phone off before a rain of questions poured down on him. They could manage without him for a few hours.

A six-pack of beer that Owen had in the fridge wasn't going to cut it, that much was clear. Instead, he reached for a bottle of Jack Daniel's he had saved for a 'special occasion'. Well, finding out that his then wife was pregnant when he left her in the dust counted as one, as far as he was concerned. He unscrewed the cap and, foregoing the glass, took several big gulps like it was nothing but water, not feeling the bitter taste or the fiery burn of alcohol scalding his throat and sloshing in his stomach, uncertain who he was mad at right now – Claire or himself.

Wasn't sure he had any right to be mad at Claire to begin with. It did, after all, happen a very long time ago, as she pointed out. It scared him still though, all things considered, the _what-ifs_ and _maybes_ crowding his mind. Another hungry gulp of whiskey made him wince. He needed all of this to go away for now, push it out of his head for as long as he could until he was ready to face the fact that he'd failed the only person who'd meant the word to him on just about every level. Did his excuse make it better? Not even fucking close…

When the sun started to set, he collapsed heavily on the bed after draining the last drops of alcohol from the bottle, his head buzzing with that pleasant hum that promised a deep sleep and a very nasty morning, but that was a problem for later.

And when he finally slipped into black oblivion, he dreamt of Claire.

He dreamt of that day that was hot like only summer days in Midwest could be when they found themselves stark in the middle of a rainstorm that came hard and fast and out of nowhere, his bike zipping across muddy puddles, the water spraying from under the tires while Claire clung to him as tight as she could, scared of loosening her grip. He skidded to an abrupt halt under the awning near his house and they made a run for the front door as the wind kept throwing angry fistfuls of rain at them.

They burst inside, soaked-through and laughing, the water dripping from their clothes on the hardwood floor. He figured they'd dry up before Claire made a dash for her own house, hoping the weather would improve soon. Both of them shivering in wet clothes, Owen found a set of clean towels and directed her toward the privacy of the bathroom, pausing only briefly to cup her cheek with his palm, unable to hold back from kissing her like she was his air after he just spend an eternity underwater.

"I'll be right back," Claire promised, laughing a little, stealing another quick kiss before disappearing behind the white door.

While she was gone, Owen gathered the discarded magazines into a more-or-less neat pile on the coffee table, suddenly self-conscious of the mess despite the fact that she'd been around enough not to be bothered by it. Not that he was going to start a full on clean-up right now. Instead, he picked up a couple of empty beer bottles from the floor near the couch and threw them into the trash, feeing somewhat better about his housekeeping skills by the second. Then he pulled off his own wet shirt, relieved to stop shivering at last and wondering if a little belatedly if he had anything clean to wear, what with his less than impressive laundry schedule.

"You know, this isn't exactly how I thought…"

Wrapped in a bath towel and drying her hair with another one, Claire stepped into the living room and stopped short. He was still standing by the couch, his shirt in his hand and his wet hair sticking out at odd angles. His gaze traveled up and down her body, his Adam's Apple bobbing in his throat when he swallowed hard, his breath hitching visibly.

She stared back. Toned and tanned, he looked like he was cut out a block of granite, stray drops of rainwater clinging to his skin – that was what she told him she was thinking about. Later. Much later.

Claire lowered her hands and draped the small towel over the back of the nearest chair. She walked over to Owen, stopping right in front of him as if pulled to him by the blue of his eyes, her fingers twitching imperceptibly, itching to push that stray curl back from his forehead.

"Claire…." he started in a low, hoarse voice.

And then she tugged at the knot keeping the bath towel in place and allowed it to fall to the floor.

"You sure-" Owen started in a barely audible whisper. He silenced him with a hand on his jaw and a kiss. Stretching up on her tiptoes, Claire weaver her hands around his neck, catching him off guard momentarily, but the next moment Owen's arms locked around her, his palms roaming around her back and shoulders. Her skin felt cool against his so much warmer one, her fingers gripping the hair on the back of his head, tugging him down.

He'd lie to himself if he didn't admit that this was what he'd been thinking every goddamn minute of his life ever since he ran into her on the side of the road a few weeks ago. Those impossibly long red hair and majestic green eyes had him trapped from the first moment he laid his eyes on her, the memory of her laughter keeping him up at night. In reality though, it was so much better. She tasted sweet and warm, and her hair smelled of rain as he nuzzled into the waterfall of her red curls while Claire's fingers tugged at the belt of his jeans, her breath short and hot on his skin.

Owen scooped her up in his arms, nearly falling when his shins hit the edge of the couch, somewhat aware in the back his mind that it was hardly the best spot for someone's first time, and he could probably make it better. But then she kissed him again, his face cupped in her palms before her hands slid down to skim over his chest and his own fingers abandoned her hair and shifted down to run over her shoulders, her soft breasts, swallowing her soft moans with his mouth.

"Owen, I don't have…" Claire began when he wiggled out of his wet jeans, which was a no easy feat, and he murmured a string of reassurances in response, a condom making an almost magical appearance in his hand.

"Sorry," he whispered, kissing the corner of her mouth when she stilled beneath him as she pushed into her. Without a word, she nuzzled into his cheek, her fingers digging into his shoulders and her hips nudging him into a slow rock, to which he was more than happy to oblige.

Later, they lay tangled together, squeezed between scratchy cushions, Claire half sprawled over Owen's chest as he looped her hair between his fingers. He pulled a comforter over their heated bodies to shield them from the fresh, cool air filtering through the thin curtains, and she stretched deliciously, pressing closer to him, nearly purring when he trailed his hand up her spine.

"You okay?" Owen asked quietly, lips brushing to the top of her head, breathing her in, wishing he could envelop her wholly with his body and never let go.

Claire giggled, kissing the hollow between his neck and his shoulder. "I hear practice makes it even better," she murmured against his skin.

He laughed. "God, you're something else, Claire."

"Something good, I hope?" An eyebrow arched quizzically, she glanced up at him with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

Owen lifted her chin, drowning in the sea-green of her eyes, his gaze flickering to the half-bow of her lips parted in a smile. Soft and pale even after long weeks in the sun, with a sprinkling of freckles glowing on her cheeks, she fit perfectly against his own body, tasting and feeling like his all of his wildest dreams rolled into one.

He pressed a long kiss to her smiling mouth.

They drifted off to the sound of rain hammering against the roof and windowpanes, and woke up later to a loud pounding on the front door—

No, that wasn't right. Owen distinctly remembered waking up to Claire brushing slow kisses to his neck, her breath hot on his skin and her hands moving over his chest. The rain had ebbed by then, but didn't stop, its low hum nothing turning into white noise now. He shifted, arms flexing around her…

And that was when someone knocked on the door.

No, that was wrong again. What happened was that they spent another hour on that couch, taking it slow this time, before he walked her home, making sure to kiss her goodbye in the driveway so her father wouldn't see them from the living room window.

But someone was at the door _now_.

Owen groaned and squeezed his eyes tight, willing the sound to go away. Willing the whole world to go straight to hell, for all he cared. His head was pounding, every breath threatening to crack his skull open, and his mouth tasted like someone died in it, and all he really wanted to do was go back to sleep before he actually killed himself just to stop this torture.

And yet, the knocking persisted, and then there was a creak of unoiled hinges of his front door that slashed through his very being with white hot pain, followed by Barry's voice.

"Owen!"

Owen grumbled and pressed his face into his pillow, doing his best to ignore the way each footstep outside his bedroom reverberated right through him, making him want to throw up, or die, or both, in any order.

"Owen?" Closer. "Come one, man, wake up."

"S'my day-" Owen pried his eyes open, "—my _night_ off," he mumbled under his breath.

"Not anymore," Barry said firmly. "We need you. It's Echo…" he hesitated. "And with Hoskins gone, it's just you, man."

That got Owen's attention alright. Scrubbing his hand over his face, he attempted to scramble out of bed, but succeeded mostly in rolling on his back. The house was dark, save for the light in the living room that Barry turned on, his frame filling the doorway to the bedroom and blocking out the bright glare of the living room lamp. Still, it was too much, and Owen moaned, or attempted to, fearing his brain would explode in the process.

"What happened?" He croaked, cringing at the sound of his own voice.

Barry shook his head. "Don't know. The vets took her to the lab." He grabbed Owen's hand and hauled him up on his feet. "C'mon. We gotta go there." He picked up an empty bottle of whiskey from the bedside table, whistling quietly under his breath before placing it back down. "Fun night, huh?"

Owen only grimaced in response.

 **To be continued...**

* * *

 **A/N** : You know what to do now - feedback is much appreciated!


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's note** : This part is a bit long, sorry about that. We're on the final stretch, so buckle up, I guess! And thank you so much for you wonderful reviews, they mean the world to me!

* * *

Claire rubbed the corners of her eyes, heaving a relieved sigh. Almost done. About 10 miles of spreadsheets, a 50-page report on the past financial year plus the analysis of the prognosis vs. actual outcome, and a PowerPoint presentation to sum it up. The only thing missing was perhaps an interpretative dancing, but this was as far as Claire's initiative went. Well, that and Owen's data he never sent it, but she decided to work it in later, not having it in her to delay finishing the rest of it any longer.

She double-checked everything, then archived all documents and sent them to Mr. Masrani for approval, hoping he would be satisfied with the end result.

The time was nearing 11 PM, and there was nothing she wanted more than to go home and fall asleep for the next 20 hours and maybe forget the back-and-forth she had with Owen earlier this afternoon. Instead, she pulled out the folder with the incident reports that came in this week. Might as well get that out of her way now.

There usually was half a dozen of them a week, hardly anything extraordinary for an island full of wild and sometime vicious animals. There was always someone who'd end up with a bruise or a cut, often caused by underestimating the dinosaurs they were dealing with. Just because most of them were herbivore didn't meant they were safe, their diet not making their claws and horns and teeth any less threatening, the sheer _mass_ of some of them posing more danger than anything else.

The one on the top of the stack made Claire frown. The Indominus-Rex again. There hardly was a week without someone reporting a problem from Paddock 11, and despite the enthusiasm she was more than eager to express in front of the potential investors, the thing living behind 40-foot tall concrete walls was giving her chills. She appreciated Simon's excitement about the new project – they did, after all, create a whole new species, however reckless it was, but if she were to consider all issues they'd already faced with that animal, Claire would probably suggest not opening it for public until they moved their security system to a whole new level.

Quite frankly, she could hardly consider it a dinosaur. As much as she generally viewed them all as one and the same, she didn't have it in her to compare that _thing_ to a Triceratops or an Apatosaurus with their mellow attitude and almost gentle nature, the I-Rex's dangerously narrowed eyes always making her wish she'd never have to visit that paddock ever again. Claire hated the idea of discussing it with Simon again, but she'd have to add it to her next week's agenda before every single handler manning that cage quit, which was something they simply couldn't afford.

She let out a long breath. This was a problem they needed to face globally, not just in a matter of one complaint. In nearly six years on this island, she had never had to deal with any other animal this often and to such an extent. Frankly, it was unnerving.

Alas, it definitely was something she couldn't solve on her own.

She made a mental note to bring it up as soon as possible. Everything was wrong with this project, from the fact that this animal ate her sibling - and Claire couldn't remember a single case of cannibalism in all of her time spent here - to a string of never-ending reports from the handlers, and that was also a first.

Having to deal with Owen on top of this all was… well, _inconvenient,_ to put it mildly.

Sometime around midnight, Claire finally pushed the door to her suite open and stifled a yawn, exhausted to the bone and wanting nothing more than to plant her face in the pillow for as long as she could. With the last spurt of energy, she wiggled out of her clothes and promised to herself to never take sleep for granted ever again.

Her phone emitted a series of demanding chirps just as she started to drift off.

Startled, Claire groaned and reached for it without opening her eyes, hoping against all hope it was nothing but a dream.

"Dearing," she muttered, not recognizing the caller ID, blinking on the screen.

" _Can I use your chopper?_ " Owen's voice sounded somewhat distant, but clear and awake enough, considering the hour.

"What?" She rubbed her eyes, struggling to understand what it was that he wanted, separate words making sense to her, but their combination remaining incomprehensible.

" _Hoskins took InGen's chopper when he left this evening. Is yours still around?_ " His tone was urgent, and Claire could hear the crunching of the gravel under his feet on the other end of the line.

"I don't under-"

" _Is it?_ " Owen interjected.

She racked her brain for a moment, before breathing out, "Yes."

" _Can I take it?_ "

"Not until you tell me-"

" _One of the raptors is sick, we need to send someone for the meds the lab doesn't have_."

Claire sat up in bed and reached for the reading lamp on the bedside table. "What happened?"

" _Claire!_ "

"Yes, take it, but I still need to…"

He hung up before she had time to finish her question, and Claire cursed quietly before kicking off her blanket and reached for her jeans draped over the back of the chair, barely managing to keep her eyes open. So much for a night of decent sleep.

Twenty minutes later, she found him sitting outside of the lab, elbows propped on his knees as he stared absently into space. With his rumpled hair and a rather notable stubble, he looked disheveled and more than a little lost, and hell if she didn't feel a pang of sympathy mixed with the familiar desire to fix whatever was troubling him somewhere deep in her gut.

Owen glanced up when her shadow fell over him, his eyes bloodshot in the bright fluorescent light of the halogen lamps overhead.

He blinked at her, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

His voice was hoarse and thick, nearly swallowed by the ever-present hum of something or another around here, from fridges to lamps to god only knew what else.

"You asked to use the company's property," she explained in that flat voice that implied that it was a pretty stupid question, even coming from him. "I must know why."

"I needed it," Owen replied in kind. "You didn't have to come."

"Actually, in the light of Mr. Masrani's recent request, I think I did. What happened? You said something about an asset being sick? Is it okay?"

"It's a _she_. And she's not an _assent_ , Claire. She's a living being." Claire only quirked an eyebrow in response, still waiting for a proper answer. "I don't know," he admitted when simply glaring at her grew old. "They're not dogs, their immune systems are different."

It was one of the handlers that noticed that Echo seemed to be off. She was disoriented, her breathing ragged and heavy, and her skin uncharacteristically warm. The man panicked and called Owen, and when Owen didn't pick up, what with the whole _let's-turn-off-the-phone-and-get-hammered_ plan being set in motion, he dialed Barry who was currently outside trying to contact Hoskins. Earlier, after he dragged Owen's half-conscious ass to the lab, he made him chug down two cups of black coffee and then left him here to wait for the news. A memoir-worthy night, really.

From his vantage point, Owen could see Echo through the glass, her sides heaving as she breathed. Wu's preliminary diagnosis was infection, but she was small, just a baby, and the scientist was hesitant to pump her with whatever they used on the grown species, fearing it would be too strong. Hence the need for something milder, something they didn't happen to have at the moment. As soon as Claire gave a green light to using their chopper, one of the lab techs was sent to the mainland, and Owen was asked to wait outside.

He gave Claire the basics, more to get her off his back than anything else, and then rubbed his chin as he watched Wu and a couple of people in white coats discuss something, their lips moving fast, but the glass wall was keeping out of his earshot. His stomach churned with guilt and fear. If he didn't take the rest of the day off, if he was there, if he bothered not to switch his phone off—

The list went on and on, doing nothing to sate him or give him peace. They were his responsibility, and however miserable and pathetic he felt because of his personal shit, he had no right to neglect it. There still was enough alcohol in his system to somewhat numb his worry, but it wouldn't last, and if something happened to Echo…

Claire lowered herself down into the chair next to his and let out a long weary sigh. He darted a quick glance in her direction, resisting the urge to drag his chair further away just for the hell of it.

"You smell like a distillery," she observed after a moment or two.

"Well, you smell-" he started automatically and then cut himself off with a huff. She smelled great, if he were honest with himself. So fucking great he wanted to bury his face in her hair and inhale her whole. "I was kinda in the middle of a party when this happened," he finished, choosing to omit the part where the party was mostly in his mind and Claire was an active participant of it, the traitorous colour creeping up his face. "You don't have to stay."

"I really don't think I have a choice," she responded evenly. "Mr. Masrani would want to have a full report."

"Or, alternatively, you could admit that you actually care," he suggested.

"Yes, please, tell me how I feel," she hummed, practically daring him to do it.

"I wasn't trying to-Not everything is an attack, Claire," Owen noted, slumping against the back of his chair and rubbing his eyes.

They stayed quiet for a few minutes, watching the commotion in the lab – Owen's eyes barely ever leaving the figures in white while Claire's attention remained divided between Wu and his team and her phone as she sought a much needed distraction from the fact that her very skin was tingling from being this close to him. The air, despite being cool down here, felt heavy and electrified around them, and it was only her pride that she wore like a shield that stopped her from dragging her chair toward the opposite wall just to make a point.

"How on earth did you end up here?" Claire breathed out after a while, not really addressing Owen, mostly just thinking out loud.

"They promised me dinosaurs. And the cabin in the woods sealed the deal," he deadpanned. She ignored the quip entirely, and he added almost despite himself, "I worked with marine mammals for a while. There's not much difference between a dolphin and a Velociraptor, apparently."

He didn't see so much as feel Claire pause, her focus shifting, anchored on him now. Very much aware of his dirty shirt and mud-caked boots, and quite possibly the rest of Jack Daniels coming out of his pores all of a sudden, Owen scowled at himself for caring. Despite Masrani's request, she didn't have to stay, and if she chose to – well, it was her problem, not his.

Except it was Claire fucking Dearing, and Owen could yell and scream about being over her for close to a decade now, and it would hardly change the fact that she could walk into the room, knock all wind out of him with a single glance, and leave him breathless and shattered without batting an eyelash, and there was no cure for that. Never had been, for all he knew. Being in love with her was like riding a goddamn bicycle apparently, and he hopped right back on it. Shocker.

"Were you really not going to tell me?" He asked quietly when the silence got too much to bear.

She didn't respond at once, and Owen didn't dare turn to her, half scared of what he might see in her eyes before she so much as opened her mouth, and half worried she'd bolt out of this bright-white place without giving him any sort of an answer, which somehow felt like a matter of life and death all of a sudden. Only yesterday, having Claire within a five-mile radius from him felt like a sucker punch that left him in a gasping heap on the floor. And now he practically longed for having to deal with just that, the irony of wishing for simpler times not lost on him.

"I don't know," Claire admitted honestly, not looking at him either. "It stopped being an issue before I could make a decision."

"I'm sorry," he rasped, his tongue dry, the words lodged in his throat like a tight ball of barbwire that made every sound coming out of his mouth garbled and distorted somehow, sounding odd and hollow and wrong even to his own ears. He scrubbed a hand down his face, wondering if the gaping black hole in his chest was going to turn him inside out at last.

"Me, too," she muttered under her breath.

"I mean it," Owen added after a moment or two, leaning forward again and staring down unseeingly at his clasped hands. "If I could go back and take it away, bear it all instead of you…" his voice dropped, his gaze remained cast down. "I'd do it. I'd do it in a second."

"What difference does it make which one of us went through it?" She shook her head.

"My pain I don't care about." He turned to her, his face crossed with resigned determination. "Yours I can't stand the idea of."

If there was anything else Owen could possibly add, he was either too tired, or too drunk, or too shocked, or maybe too stuck in that goddamn dream still to know what it was.

There was a sudden flurry of commotion at the door, and then the corridor filled with people that talked over each other, hurrying toward the lab, the man Claire remembered as Barry a few steps behind them – with them, but not really. He paused when he spotted her and Owen, his eyes darting between the two of them, unasked questions so visible on his face it was almost comical. He composed himself quickly though, offering Claire an uncertain nod before turning to Owen who uncurled from his chair not without a bit of a struggle.

"It's fine. I got ahold of Hoskins," Barry explained. "He said to go with whatever Dr. Wu says."

"So, did you get what you needed?" Claire asked if a little hesitantly, joining them.

Barry's eyebrows quirked in surprise, and it occurred to Owen that if Hoskins didn't explain the new order of things to everyone, which he probably didn't deem necessary, her presence here probably made little sense to him. He cleared his throat and caught another man up to date, a bit more aware of Claire standing right next to him than he liked to admit.

"You should go home," Owen told him in the end. "No need for both of us to be stuck here all night."

Barry hesitated, his eyes flickering almost involuntarily toward Claire in a silent assumption as to why his company wasn't welcome, and Owen's scowl deepened. Mercifully, she had her nose buried in a text message or something equally exciting, missing their telepathic conversation entirely. But still…

"If you say so," Barry agreed without a fight, his gaze shifting toward Wu.

Owen glanced at the scientist over his shoulder. "I'll call you or something when there's news," he offered, and Barry nodded before waving his goodbye and disappearing around the corner. Seconds later, a soft hum of the elevator announced his departure, and it was the two of them again, in that stifling place between wanting to avoid one another at all costs and barely holding back from going for each other's throats.

Owen slumped heavily back into his chair and let out a long breath, already starting to feel the ill effects of his reckless decision to drown in whiskey while Claire chose to pace the width of the hallway, seemingly unaware of doing it, and suddenly he wished he could send her home, too. Except there was no way she'd do it if he asked – if there was anything he knew about Claire Dearing at all, it was that she didn't appreciate being ordered around.

It wasn't for another half hour that Wu finally cracked the door to the lab open and waved Owen in, the lines on his face relaxed, and the proverbial weight lifted off Owen's shoulders - so much so, he thought he'd soar up into the air. He leaped up to his feet promptly, and then paused, turning to Claire.

"You wanna…" He started, jerking his chin toward Wu.

"Go," she shook her head, not quite looking at him. "I'll… I think I better go find us some coffee." Her eyebrows knitted together as she considered something before address Wu directly. "Henry, can I have a word?"

Owen glanced at her one last time before stepping almost reluctantly into the lab, assaulted momentarily by that chemical, medical smell he so detested about the hospitals and everything that was sterile white.

One of the lab techs explained to him that it wasn't an infection after all. Echo apparently had an allergic reaction to something she ate, most likely a plant in the paddock and not the food that was carefully monitored while they were this young. However, while the flora of the island was supposed to be a safe environment for the animals, it was impossible to eliminate the individual intolerance entirely, and baby raptors were not much different from baby _anything else_ in their desire to taste the world around them.

It was a good sign that none of the other raptors exhibited the same symptoms, which made dealing with this one case easier than trying to get an epidemic under control. Nonetheless, Owen was told what to check the paddock for while keeping an eye on all animals for a while.

Echo was in a plastic crate, scraping the walls with her claws, and maybe it was only Owen's wishful thinking, or the late hour mixed with more alcohol than he had at once since college, but he could have sworn she perked up when he walked over to her.

"Hey there," he breathed out, only now realizing how tight his chest had been with worry this whole time. Unable to hold back a relieved smile, he reached into the crate and scratched her under the chin, like a puppy, mostly for lack of better ideas. Echo emitted a low creaky sound and made a lunge for his finger, not really meaning it though.

They wanted to keep her under observation for a few more hours and run some tests on the other three raptors, but as far as everyone was concerned, she was going to be fine.

When Owen finally stumbled into the corridor again, so tired he could probably fall asleep standing, Claire was nowhere to be found. There was, however, a paper cup of coffee sitting on his chair, the air cloaking him still smelled like her.

xoox

" _Owen Grady?_ The _Owen Grady_?"

Claire could hear Karen's jaw hit the floor from several thousand miles away.

"The one and only," Claire panted as she upped the speed of the treadmill by another 5 miles, eager to pound the hell out of this thing until her muscles dissolved and her lungs started to burn.

There were certain perks to hitting the Hilton's gym at the crack of dawn – the guests rarely showed up here at all, set on spending their vacation time in a more pleasant way that attacking the machines, and the staff general did it after work, eager to catch an extra hour of sleep in the morning. As a result, she had the whole room to herself more often than not, using it to burn off the stress, reveling in the simplicity of movement that didn't require any mental effort on her part.

The sun just peeked over the treetops behind the large windows that took up two walls of the gym, flooding the room with soft glow striped with long distorted shadows. If it wasn't for the hum of the cooling system, Claire would almost believe she was cutting across the park, battering packed dirt and a layer of foliage on the ground with her sneakers. That, and her sister's voice in her earpiece that felt oddly out of place.

" _You're joking_ ," Karen uttered.

"I wouldn't be able to make that up even if I wanted to."

Karen didn't know everything, but she did know more than anyone else. Between their father's undisclosed desire to skin Owen alive and their mother's tight-lipped silent treatment, it was her sister with her 7-month baby bump that stroked Claire's hair while she cried her heart out, wishing she could fold in on herself and disappear. Karen was the one who knew how much it hurt and how desperately Claire wanted to stop existing in those days. Still a few weeks before she noticed the changes in her own body, Claire would bury her face in her sister's shoulder and let the tears come.

And then Zach – who they didn't know was a boy yet and who was lovingly referred to as Pickle at the time for the reasons Claire couldn't remember – would kick, and Karen would place Claire's palm on her belly, and sometimes, the tears would go away.

Maybe calling her wasn't the wisest decision Claire had ever made, but she needed to tell someone – someone who understood – and there was no else she could turn to. Confused and disoriented, she was starting to feel like she was losing her mind. And watching Owen croon over a dinosaur the other night – there was no other word for what she saw when she returned with their coffee – had left her more than a little on edge. The softness around him was unfamiliar now, the sharp angles of his face and the wariness of his gaze morphed into an expression of perpetual wonder that left her with wobbly knees and a hot lump in her throat until she couldn't bear stay in the bright lights of the lab any longer.

" _So what's the plan?_ " Karen asked almost cautiously as if fearing that a careless word or even the tone of her voice would sent Claire into a downward spiral all over again. They did, after all, put a ban on mentioning Owen or that summer for a decade and a half. Doing it now felt like brushing the cobwebs off the old furniture in an abandoned house. Awkward and odd and surreal.

"Right now I mostly hope that I'll wake up one morning and none of this will be real anymore," Claire admitted, slowing down to a steady jog to catch her breath before she passed out or fell off the treadmill.

" _Okay_ ," her sister drawled. " _And realistically speaking?_ "

Claire puffed out a breath. "We end up yelling at each other every time we talk, so I think not doing that would be a start," she grimaced inwardly. "Trust me, all I want to do is keep going on with my work, but…"

" _What?_ "

"I don't know. It's like wherever I turn, he's right there, with his bike and his raptors and his… everything," she huffed with exasperation for good measure, knowing for a fact Karen wouldn't buy it.

And she didn't, most likely.

" _What's he like?_ "

An impossible asshole, Claire wanted to say even though it clearly wasn't what her sister wanted to know. However, any other answer felt just as insane – for one thing, she couldn't remember if Karen even met him, socially. Sure they all knew about the less fortunate Grady family, but Karen moved out at 18, when Owen was still in middle school or something like that, and her memories of the scrawny boy ended right there.

In fact, when Claire finally fessed up – mostly because there was no way she could get the marriage annulment without her parents finding out about it and it seemed like a wiser choice to tell them herself than have them hear about it from the family lawyer – Karen asked her if it was the 'blond guy with Chevy' who lived two streets away and who used to push their lawnmower a few years back because neither of the Grady sisters was capable of operating it. So yeah, whatever she and Owen did to hide their short-lived relationship worked out well enough.

"He's… broader in the shoulders than I remember," she offered, uncertain of what else to add and wincing at how stupid it sounded. He was, though. "I don't know, Karen. It's been 16 years and it's not like we've been taking trips down the memory lane and reminiscing about the past. Or, god forbid, catching up." She paused to inhale deeply and then exhale slowly. Okay, it did feel good to talk it out. Maybe she'd feel less on edge once she got it off her chest. Or at least some of it. "He's as happy with our work arrangements as I am, so there's that."

What _was_ he like, though?

Claire had to admit it was rather hard to be objective when her irritation inevitably hit another level whenever she so much as thought about him, which was making it impossible to see the whole picture. If she were honest with herself, however… Guarded. Wary. He seemed like the kind of person who had seen enough to look both ways before crossing a one-way street. Before, he could look into her eyes and see her very soul because he was infatuated with her; now he would try to do that because it was a matter of survival, an unbeatable instinct ingrained into him.

Even after all this time, it shocked her to see his gaze so sharp, his jackass comments barely anything but a shield he was hiding behind. The raw pain she saw in his eyes a few days ago when they were sitting outside the lab, his voice breaking with unsaid words, crushed under the weight of the world and everything his life had thrown at him. The lines around his eyes were deeper, the curve of his lips more cynical. It seemed like someone pulled him apart and then assembled him back together in haste, without any regard as to how the parts were supposed to fit.

She wondered if she looked the same way to him, and either answer felt equally unnerving.

" _And is that a good thing?_ " She could hear Karen frown all the way through the phone.

"Probably." Claire slowed down to a walk and grabbed a towel to dab her heated face. "Look, I'm sorry I woke you. It was… a really weird couple of weeks, and I didn't know…"

She hit the pause and stopped, her chest still heaving and her heart pumping in earnest. Outside the window, the sunbeds around the pool were slowly filling with particularly enthusiastic guests, and soon, she knew, the area would be buzzing with activity and kids running around.

" _Are you okay?_ " Karen asked after a brief hesitation.

"This is my job. I guess I'll figure out how to do it," Claire responded absently, watching a man in his late 40's spread a towel over the sunbed before diving into the cool blue water.

" _It's not what I meant_."

"I know."

" _So?_ "

"It happened a very long time ago," Claire said at last, summoning whatever little logic she still had in her. "We're not the same people and it's not the same situation, and frankly, I do hope it'll just go away."

" _Well, at least now I know where to find him if he ever breaks your heart again_."

"He's not going to-" She stepped off the treadmill and grabbed her towel and water bottle, ready to hit the shower before she headed to the office, still antsy and restless even after covering 14,5 miles in her futile attempt to run away from herself. "It's not like that."

 _"Just… be careful, okay?_ "

"Of course. I mean, there's nothing to be careful about."

" _Claire,_ I am _still traumatized_ -"

"Well, like I said, it's just a job with… complications. And anyway, this extracurricular thing is only for this week." She rubbed her forehead. "Then his own boss will be back and I won't have to see him more than necessary."

Karen hummed skeptically. " _I demand a picture anyway_."

"Karen!"

" _What? You were married to a guy and I never even saw his face!_ "

"Google him," Claire suggested dryly.

" _I hate you sometimes_."

"Yeah, I love you, too."

xoox

The concrete walls towering over the treetops appeared from behind a curve in the road, and Claire's jaw clenched instinctively. It was turning into a goddamn habit – she visited this place more times than any of the park's attractions, and it was getting on her last nerve. Sadly, it had been three days since their magical midnight talk, and Claire was starting to suspect that keeping an eye on this InGen project didn't necessarily mean ignoring Owen to the best of her ability.

She needed an update.

He wasn't picking up his phone.

Those trips to the paddock that kept eating up chunks of her already precious time were starting to feel a little old.

To his credit, Owen did send her the required reports. Eventually. Which only made this particular visit feel even more pointless, mostly because she had other things to do, and not at all because of the nervous flurry in her chest. She was a grown woman, for crying out loud. It should've taken more than a past flame to knock the ground from under her feet and leave her suspended in midair, and yet here she was, desperately trying to pack her schedule with pointless tasks, like inventory, all to _avoid a boy_.

Jesus…

Coward she was not, but the familiar twinge in the pit of her stomach left her more than a little nauseated nonetheless. It turned out that putting something that she never thought was truly over to rest was an impossible task.

Basking in the warmth of the late afternoon sun, Barry waved at her in an almost familiar way, which Claire didn't know how to place – as a woman in a position of power, she was keenly aware of how people perceived her, knowing that any sign of softness and openness on her part would be interpreted as weakness. Being considered stone-cold and devoid of any emotion was an inevitable side-effect of keeping her true feelings under control. Thus, heartfelt greetings from the employees were few and far between, which left Claire with a mixture of appreciation and concern over how much Owen let on about their… situation. It was one thing to have a certain image by choice, and something else entirely to be a butt of crass jokes between the handlers.

Still, she waved back, and Barry hollered over his shoulder, "Owen!" to have the latter pop up from behind one of the trailers clustered to the left from where Claire parked her car.

He paused, confused, his hand reaching automatically for a stained rag to wipe his hands with. "Hey," he offered her a curt nod that could mean anything from _Thanks for stopping_ _by_ to _Drop dead,_ for all she knew. It wasn't particularly easy to read him these days.

Claire cleared her throat and willed herself to look as detached and disinterested, and maybe a little bit annoyed for good measure as she could, which wasn't all that hard, save for the fact that she wasn't really any of those things. Not to a significant extent at least.

She nodded back, taking her time to compose herself by observing the people around them, very much apprehensive of their attention. "Mr. Masrani will be waiting for my status update tomorrow," Claire started in a painfully formal voice. "I assume he would want an update from you, as well."

"'Kay," Owen shrugged. "We're good." He grimaced a little when she arched an eyebrow, prompting him to continue. "Look, I don't know what Hoskins puts in those reports. Everything's fine. We start training the next week."

"Good." Okay, she could probably pull up earlier updates submitted by Hoskins and see what she could compile, using them as a template. Admittedly, Owen's response still was not helpful at all. "And… ah, what about the asset you had a trouble with? Is everything okay with it?"

He frowned at her, his jaw clenched in frustration. "With _her_. Her name is Echo." He breathed out through his nose. "She's fine." And then, "Wanna see for yourself?"

"What?" Claire blinked and all but took a step back, almost expecting him to throw her into the cage if she was close enough for him to grab her. "Thank you, but I think I'm good."

The corner of his mouth curved ever so slightly, and for the first time, there was a glint of genuine humor in his gaze. "C'mon. You're in too deep anyway, might as well know what you're dealing with."

Mindful of the handlers who were giving them curious looks, Claire followed him toward the paddock. She expected him to head straight for the stairs leading to the catwalk, but instead he walked right past them on his way to the cage entrance, equipped with inch-thick bars and a double door just to be safe.

Claire hesitated when he pulled the first one open. "Is it safe?" She inquired skeptically, eyeing the four raptors on the other side of the second gate with wary distrust. They were growing fast, and what could easily fit in Owen's hands only a few day ago was now nearly twice as big and, quite possibly, twice as toothy. Not that they looked particularly vicious, she had to admit that much, but far be it from her to trust them.

"No," Owen said easily, giving her a quick cheeky grin. "You coming?"

With a pointed sigh, Claire allowed him to shut the first door before he pressed a couple of buttons on the panel attached to the wall of the inner cage. The whole thing looked exactly like the Indominus Rex's paddock which she visited while it was still under construction and before the animal was moved there – open area in the front, allowing to observe the raptors from the bridges and catwalks above, and a piece of jungle in the back.

As if on cue, four shadows darted from the thick greenery with croaky screeches, pushing one another and barreling into Owen's legs, their tails wagging and their claws scratching at his jeans as if they were trying to climb up his frame, which probably wasn't that far from the truth. Chuckling, he crouched down amidst them, pushing them off playfully only to have them try to latch onto him again. In this moment, they looked like overly excited dogs whose owner finally came home, except they were not, and Claire stopped by the iron gate, uncertain as to what the protocol was.

Not that they noticed her at all. Not at first, at least. It wasn't until one of the animals whipped its head around, sniffing the air, that the others followed suit, their snake-like eyes with slightly unsettling vertical pupils fixed on her. She had to admit it felt a little unsettling. Not as bad as when the I-Rex was staring at her from her hiding spot behind the tree, so still Claire wondered half the time if she was even alive, but she still couldn't help but feel like this was lunch time and she was the main item on the menu. Except the raptors were only a foot tall and almost comically uncoordinated still, their feet seemingly too large for their bodies. Mixed signals all over.

"Behave," Owen told them with a warning as he uncurled from his squat while his pack started to inch toward Claire, growling low in their throats.

She was tempted to remind him that they were not likely to listen to him, the easiness with which he acted around them left her both fascinated and maybe a little envious.

Instead, she asked which one was which. He introduced them quickly while they circled around her, their tails brushing against her legs and their snouts bumping into the feet, making her worry about the safety of her toes.

"They all look the same to me," she admitted with a grimace, earning a scornful snort in response.

"That's 'cause you see them as things, not living beings," Owen pointed out, scooping one of the raptors in his hands.

"What exactly is a point of this, again?" She asked, eyeing the animal in his arms with caution, half expecting it to go straight for Owen's jugular. Funny looking they might be, but safe they were definitely not.

"You work in a place that defies the laws of nature, and you don't even know even know what you have here."

She bristled at his comment. "Are you seriously calling me unprofessional right now?" She gaped at him, hoping that one of the animals _would_ bite him. "Need I remind you-"

"I'm not calling you anything," he interjected, but without malice. "I'm just sayin' you only see one side of the coin, is all."

"Oh, and you're an expert at seeing the whole picture, right?"

"Are we still talking about the park?" He was standing barely a foot away from her, basically towering over her. The raptor stirred in his arms, emitting a low, guttural sound of protest. Owen looked down, as if only now remembering he was still holding it – _her_ \- and Claire had to summon all of her willpower so as not to step back, transfixed by the small but undoubtedly sharp teeth peeking from under pulled-back lips. "This is Delta," he said, nodding down. "Wanna hold her?"

Claire's eyes widened. Well, no. For one thing, those teeth. And then there was a matter of her pale chiffon blouse she didn't want to stain, or tear, or…

"I think I'm good," she said stiffly, her eyes not leaving the wiggling creature that she probably never saw this close before – not without a glass between them, which worked just fine for her, truth be told. She did trust Owen's judgement, which came as surprise in and of itself, but if there was anything she'd learned in the years she spent in this place, it was that even herbivore species could be unpredictable and deadly. Anything with an appetite for blood, however small, was to be stayed away from, period.

"Honestly, she's like a puppy," Owen insisted. "She's not gonna-"

Claire gasped when a sting of sharp pain pierced her right leg above the ankle, more shocked by the suddenness of it than anything else.

"—bite," Owen finished automatically. "Shit," he muttered at the sight of Blue tugging at the leg of Claire's beige pants. "Blue!" he barked sharply, setting Delta down. He flicked the other raptor on the nose with his fingers and she unclenched her jaw if a little reluctantly, hissing at him, all righteous indignation. "Claire…"

"I'm fine," Claire muttered numbly as she watched droplets of blood seep through the thin material, mildly nauseated from the adrenaline rush.

"Shit," Owen repeated. He shooed his charge away and nudged her toward the exit. "Come on, we need to take care of it."

The office that he pulled her into a minute later was nothing but a glorified trailer stuffed with two cluttered desks, a few chairs, a couch taking up most of one of the walls and a mini-fridge. It was dark and stuffy, smelling of dust, papers, and potato chips, which, for a place that no one probably cleaned in months, wasn't all that bad. Claire spotted three laptops, several coffee mugs and a microwave sitting on top of the fridge. The fans mounted on the walls were turned off, which she considered a blessing – god only knew what kind of dust storm they would set off.

"Sit," Owen ordered, pointing at one of the chairs.

She remained standing on principle. Owen scowled at her from the other end of the room where he was rummaging through a cupboard.

"We need to disinfect it," he said in a mock patient voice that made her own frown deepen. Now that the initial surprise started to wane, she could feel a dull tug in the pierced spot.

"I can do that at the infirmary," she protested, wishing she were more persistent in her attempt to leave before he had a chance to get her here. If nothing else, she trusted the cleanness of the First Aid station more than this place. And she could be halfway to the resort by now.

"Or I can do it right now." He slammed the cupboard door, a small bag with a dull red cross in his hands.

She regarded the offered chair dubiously, wondering if it was clean enough. Then again, stained with blood and ripped by the dinosaur's teeth, her pants were taking a trip to the dumpster anyway, so what did it matter? She sat down gingerly and extended her hand to Owen, palm open.

"I can do it."

"You could also sit tight for two minutes and be on your merry way in three," he countered, lowering down in front of her.

Owen pulled her foot onto his lap and undid the clasp on her black strappy sandal before pulling it off and setting it aside. He rolled up the pant leg of her suit pants, wondering for the umpteenth time why on earth would anyone wear anything light around here. Granted, Claire didn't live in the middle of the jungle and probably didn't have to plow through mud on a daily basis, but it hardly changed the fact that it was highly impractical.

There were a few puncture marks on her pale skin, pink around the edges but no longer bleeding. He inspected them closely, relieved to see that however this, the fabric of her pants saved her from a bigger trouble.

"Sorry," he murmured when her breath hitched, thinking that he inadvertently hurt her, very much aware all of sudden of having her foot in his lap. Her skin was smooth and cool, bringing back the memory of how her feet used to be cold all the time, which she used shamelessly to shock him awake on the afternoons spent, well, not doing much outside of his house. "It might sting a bit," he warned her softly, soaking a cotton ball with sharply-smelling antiseptic before brushing it gently to the bite mark, careful to clean each of the small wounds.

"I'll live," Claire breathed out, as if she wasn't gripping the edge of the chair so tight her knuckles had turned white.

"'Course you will." Owen showed her one of his forearms crisscrossed with hearing scratches. "They're babies, Claire. They were just playing."

"Well, your baby just cost me a $500 pair of pants," she retorted.

"Maybe it'll teach you not to throw your money away," he shrugged. Jesus, his whole life cost less than her outfit.

"Not everyone can pull off the _I woke up like this_ look with flying colours," she retorted.

"Wait, did you just compliment me?" An eyebrow cocked quizzically, he tossed the cotton ball into the trash.

Her cheeks flushed with colour. "Are you done?"

"As a matter of fact…"

He allowed her to put her shoe back on, watching her tuck her hair behind her ear every few seconds only to have to fall on her cheek again straight away.

"Good as new, huh?" He hummed, offering her his hand, which Claire accepted without protest, and pulling her up to her feet.

And then she was suddenly nearly pressed to his chest, eyes wide and lips parted slightly as if she wanted to say something but forgot what it was supposed to be. He could feel her breath brushing his chin, the vein on her neck fluttering with escalated pulse. She smelled of peaches and something floral, a familiar scent he carried on his clothes for so long after he left it all but seeped into his skin. Claire's fingers flexed around his, and Owen's gaze dropped to her lips painted pale pink. He heard her swallow, the sound barely registering through the blood rush in his ears.

As if against his own will, he reached over to push her hair back from her face, his fingertips brushing against her skin. Her breath caught in her throat, and then his palm cupped her jaw and his mouth found hers. Hands pushing through her hair, running over her arms, her shoulders, digging into her back, Owen moaned lowly his throat, too distracted by the feel of her to notice that Claire went completely still, momentarily dumbfounded by this sudden progression. He was about to pull back and apologize, and then probably move to Greenland or something - whichever continent was far enough away from South America to make the horror of this moment go away – when her lips parted at long last, her fingers gripping the collar of his shirt and pulling his down to her.

His tongue darted into her mouth and the sound that escaped her chest all but left him undone.

Owen pushed her against of the desks, the sharp edge digging into her thighs, and she tugged at his hair, pressing to his chest, his taut muscles rippling under the fabric of his shirt. The kiss was hard and hungry and demanding. He tasted the same, the smell of his skin mixing with the scent of this room, and god, she was pretty damn certain it was not a gun in his pocket. Her own heart made a flip and shot all the way into outer space.

Panting, Owen pulled back when there was no air left between them, his mouth pressing slow, sloppy kisses to her forehead, her temples, his breath on her skin making Claire shiver as she clung to his shirt, scared to let go.

"Come with me," he rasped into her ear, sending a tingling sensation down her spine.

 _No_ , she thought, the remnants of her commons sense screaming at her to get out before it was too late.

She looked up at him and nodded.

xoox

They took her car, but Owen slid into the driver's seat. For one thing, he knew the shortcut to his bungalow that didn't require getting back on the main road and taking a detour, and also because all Claire cold do was stare out the windshield and the narrow, winding road snaking between the trees, her fingers pressed to her lips that still burned with his kiss. If she found herself behind a wheel at this moment, she wouldn't know what to do.

His bungalow was small and messy, but more in a lived-in than neglected way.

Not that Claire had time to notice or consider any of this because the moment she stepped in, Owen's arms were around her and he was kissing her again with reckless abandon, his lips firm and warm, and she was melting into him, her mind pleasantly empty and numb. There was nothing but the touch of his hands, sliding over her body, sending zaps of electric current along her skin.

He pulled her blouse from the waistband of her pants before his fingers edged under the hem of it, skimming over her soft, flat belly, making her gasp and sink her teeth into his bottom lip. Feeling unhinged and wild somehow, she trailed her tongue along it, pushing his leather vest down his shoulders and fumbling with the buttons of his shirt, tempted to tear it off of him. Blood hammered in her temples, soft warmth pooling in the pit of her stomach, making her legs weak and cottony, and god… the voice in the back of her mind had finally shut up, succumbed to the moment.

"Wait, there's a…" she breathed out, reaching to undo a small button at the nape of her neck before Owen slipped her thin, weightless blouse over her head, tossing it aside.

He paused to take her in, to trail his fingers along the straps of her beige bra, cupping one of her breasts with the palm of his hand while another slid around Claire neck as he drew her in to press another hot kiss to her mouth. His skin felt rough and calloused against hers, and so hot she feared he would leave searing burns all over her.

She whimpered when his thumb brushed against her nipple through the thin, delicate lace, trembling and dizzy, and Owen yanked her closer to him in a desperate urge to devour her whole, his tongue hot and demanding in her mouth. In a tangle of arms and legs, they tumbled into the bedroom, only by miracle not tripping over the patches of mismatched rugs on the floor, and Claire finally managing to tug his shirt off of him, her nails digging into his shoulders, scraping his skin.

"Want you so bad, Claire," he chuffed against her neck, trailing his way down her throat with hot, open-mouthed kisses as he lowered her down, spreading her on the bed, transfixed and aching for her.

She reached for the button on his jeans, her hand sliding inside, and he was groaning mid-kiss, bunching the sheets near her head with his fist, feeling like his heart might burst from deep, consuming need.

Palms framing his face, Claire drew him in again, a plea morphing into a moan when his fingers slipped under the straps of her bra, tracing the shape of her breasts before he reached for the clasp in the get rid of it. Immediately, his mouth replaced his hands, making her shudder, her body welcoming his familiar touch. Claire threw her hard back, her teeth biting into her lip as his mouth closed around one rosy peak and then another, his tongue teasing the sensitive skin, relief and anticipation flowing in her blood stream.

Owen nuzzled into her belly, breathing her in, filled with such primitive need to be in her it hurt. Years of longing and missing and dreaming of this moment tore into him, Claire's short, laboured breathing igniting him from the inside, an undercurrent of desire rippling beneath his skin. Fingers clumsy on the small hook on the front of her pants, he practically ripped them off of her, only pausing just long enough to kick off his own boots before pulling off her elegant shoes, taking his time to kiss the inside of her ankles, brush his lips to the bite mark, his gaze never leaving hers. Absently, he wondered if it was the right time to tell her she was a part of the pack now, marked by Blue.

Elated to finally have access to more of her skin, his gaze skimmed the length of her legs, slowly taking in the curve of her hips, the flat plain of her stomach, the swell of her breasts, past the tender whiteness of her neck and a bow of her parted lips, finally fastening on the sea-green of her eyes that were pulling him in like a magnet.

He leaned in, his index finger slipping into the waistband of her panties, and Claire pushed up to sit, reaching again for his jeans, tugging them down. His boxers followed suit, and Owen stepped out of the mass of fabric pooled at his ankles before fitting his mouth over hers again, tilting her back, sliding his hand between her thighs to tease the soft achy folds at her core. Claire's hand fell on his side, her nails leaving pale-pink half-moon marks on his tan skin when he touched her, tender and more than ready for him.

And then it hit him.

"Fuck," Owen muttered, his chest heaving as he pressed his forehead into her throat, feeling utterly cheated.

"What?" Claire murmured, cupping his face in her hands, his eyes searching her face, and god, she was so beautiful, so _his_ he thought he was going to die.

"I don't…" he swallowed, grimaced, squeezed his eyes tight. "I don't have anything, I didn't… didn't plan this."

"IUD," she breathed out, thumbs running over his stubbled cheeks. "Unless you…"

"Clean as a whistle."

Owen let out a shaky, relieved laugh, kissing her again, removing the flimsy piece of fabric that was her panties in one swift motion, a knee braced between Claire's legs, his eyes wide and dark with want.

In silent reassurance, her hand mapped a path down his stomach, stroking the whole length of him, guiding him home. Her gasp when he sank into her shot a spurt of fire right through Owen, and he groaned into her neck when her walls closed around him, hot and wet and pulsing, unable to resist another thrust to slide in deeper, fill her whole, stealing another moan of acceptance from her. Back arched, Claire gripped the hair on the back of his head, her hips rising to meet him, closer, everywhere inside and around her, her body responding to the touch it ached for for too long.

"Please," she whispered breathily, the tight knot in her lower belly throbbing with hot need.

Owen chuckled, kissed her again, deeply and thoroughly. He caught one of her wrists and pressed it into the pillow over her head for a delicious stretch, his hips settling into a steady rock, sliding in and out of her, losing himself in the sheer delight of being with her, feeling her, tasting her.

Legs wrapped around him, she nuzzled into his neck, nipping at his earlobe, consuming, claiming, leaving him hungry for more, his skin hot and sweat-slick, his heartbeat racing against Claire's. Lips dancing over his face, she coaxed him into quickening their pace, his vision tunneled, zeroed in on the waves of immense pleasure washing over them. He shivered, spinning away, spiraling into a bliss. Thoughts blurred, Owen plunged into her, burying himself in her depths time and time again, branding her with his hands, lips, teeth, until she was quaking apart beneath him, whimpering against his skin, clenched tightly around him. His own relief zinged along his body, tearing him to pieces, ripping a cry of satisfaction from him as the universe shattered around them with her name on his lips.

"Thank you," Owen mumbled into her shoulder, panting and spent, and finally whole again. Propped up on the elbow, still inside her, he pushed her bangs damp with sweat from her forehead. Her gaze still glazed over, barely focused, Claire blinked dazedly and leaned into his touch, brushing her lips to his palm, to the inside of his wrist. "God, I missed you," he murmured, dropping his head against hers and rolling them over so as not to crush her with the weight his body, melting into the sweet, sparkling contentment.

Arms locked around her, he cradled her to his chest, every curve of her body fitting against every curve of his like no time had passed at all, breathing in the scent of her skin and the musk of sex wrapped around them, feeling so alive.

And then Claire's breath caught in her throat, and she was pushing away from him and scrambling out of bed. With trembling fingers she reached for the first item of clothing she saw on the floor, which appeared to be Owen's discarded shirt, her chest tight, rendering breathing near impossible.

"Claire?"

"I can't," she muttered, gulping for air, lightheaded and scared. "I can't so this…"

Owen rolled off the bed in a blur of motion, standing right before her in a heartbeat. "What's going-"

"Don't touch me!" She pressed a hand to her mouth, stepping back before he could reach for her, a forced sob rising from her chest. Eyes squeezed tight, she gave up on trying to button up his shirt, choosing to wrap it around herself instead. "Don't… please don't, I can't go through this again."

"Claire, what…"

She was not looking at him, couldn't bring herself to raise her eyes, her chest heaving convulsively. Owen's presence was almost palpable though, impossible to ignore. Suffocating. She bit into her bottom lip and took another step back, her legs wobbly and her insides coiled into a tight knot.

"When you left… I thought I'd die, Owen. I wished I would." She inhaled sharply. "I _hoped_ I would." The words tumbled out of her mouth, scattering around them. "I hated you, hated you so much. Not for leaving but for… for giving me everything I ever wanted and then taking away." Her voice was trembling, breaking with every inhale. "And I didn't want to tell you about the baby because I thought you'd take it away from me, too. And I couldn't—I couldn't…"

"I'm sorry." He whispered. "I'm so sorry, Claire."

"I can't do it again," she repeated, still backing away. "We should never have-"

Her small fist hit him in the chest when he took a step closer to her, and then again, but she didn't resist when he pulled her into his arms, her hands trapped between their bodies while she shook with sobs, so endlessly tired of carrying this fear and pain inside her. So very tired…

"Shh," Owen murmured, pressing small, soft kisses to the top of her head, his hands running soothingly up and down her back, stroking her tangled hair that were framing her face in gentle waves. "I'm sorry. I am so very sorry for… this, for everything."

"I never forgave you for it," she whispered into his chest, her voice muffled and so quiet he almost missed it. "For giving me everything and leaving me with nothing. And I never will."

Owen closed his eyes, trying to ignore the dull ache in his chest, a bruise left by her words. "S'okay." His whole body squeezed around her in a fierce protectiveness. "I'll never forgive myself either." They stayed right there, standing in the middle of his small bedroom that barely had enough space for a bed, a dresser, and a nightstand near the window – him murmuring words of comfort and her crying her soul out - until Claire quieted and her breath stopped coming out in short rasps. "You want me to take you home?" Owen asked at last.

She stilled in his arms, then sniffled and shook her head. "No."

"Okay. C'mere." He pulled her back toward the bed and crouched in front of her when Claire sat down on the edge of it. "I'm sorry," Owen repeated, clasping her hands between his. "I shouldn't have…" he started and faltered, his thumbs running over her knuckles. "I should've talked to you. What I did, then… you're right, it was stupid and selfish, and, god help me, I can't blame you for hating me."

He offered her a wistful not-quite-smile.

"I wanted to do the right thing, and back then, I really didn't think if I had a choice." Owen reached over to brush a strand of hair from her tear-stained cheek. "Leaving you near killed me." Her eyes locked with his, gleaming in the fading light, that impossibly ethereal green that never failed to take his breath away. "I wish I knew about the baby, Claire. I don't know if it'd've changed anything, I really don't, but-but I'd never make you go through it on your own."

"I really wanted it," she whispered, blinking fast, and looked away. "And if it lived, I'd love it more than life."

After he left, after the baby was gone, Claire climbed into this invisible box, pulled a lid over her head, folded in on herself and screamed her guts out until there was nothing but numbness left. But now it was wide open again, the lid ripped out of this, the contents of the old Claire spilled at their feet, and she didn't know how to deal with it, how to pull them back together.

"I know," Owen breathed out. And she was crying again, quietly, her tears dropping on the knot of their hands. "Oh, baby. Don't. Please…" He pressed her fingers to mouth, his lips soft and warm against her skin. "I'm sorry… I have never stopped loving you. Not for one day." His voice was low and hoarse, going straight to her bones. His thumb ran over her cheekbone, wiping her tears away. Then his index finger slid down to her chin and Owen lifted her face up, his eyes searching hers. "But if you want me to leave, I will." A pause. "It's just a job. And if this… all of this, if it's too much… I'll be gone. Tomorrow, if you want me to. There's nothing, not a single thing I wouldn't do for you, Claire." He swallowed. "Do you want me gone?"

She shook her head vigorously, her hands of his face, pulling him toward her. "No, I don't want that. I want…" She pressed her lips to his, and then one more time, still out of breath, her thoughts a tangled mess, words slipping away from her reach.

Owen got the clue, though. His hand snaked around her neck as Claire moved back, giving him room to follow her. He kissed her, deeply and slowly, tasting the salt on her skin. His fingers undid the two buttons she managed to get to in her earlier hasty attempt, pushing his shirt down and letting the gravity take it. His hand fell down to her breast, skimming lower over her ribs and around her waist, his name on her lips filling the cracks running through him with white-hot desire.

Claire's hand roamed up his neck and into his hair, tugging and pulling, her tongue tracing the shape of his mouth, a primitive sound full of need in the back of his throat echoing deep inside her. Breathless, she trailed a string of kisses along his cheek, arching into him, her nimble fingers scaling the lines of his chest, set on a determined quest of their own. Owen groaned into her ear when they reached their destination, impossibly hard already, and she hadn't even done much more than kiss him. He gathered her then, and she slipped into his lap, taking him into her with a sigh that ricocheted right through his core, longing mixed with lust mixed with possessive satisfaction.

"How do you still feel the same?" He uttered against her shoulder, panting, his hands digging into her hips, splayed on her back, seemingly everywhere at once.

"I missed you, too," Claire mouthed, allowing her eyes to drop shut when she started to move, his fingers on the small of her back setting the rhythm.

They took it slower this time, savouring the sensation of filling and being filled. Owen's mouth closed around one of her breasts, claiming every inch of her, his tongue doing amazing things while she was barely capable of anything but holding on for dear like, her nails leaving pink lines on his sun-bathed skin while he pushed deeper with every thrust, hot and real inside her.

Close, she thought as her breath grew erratic while Owen's lips latched on to her throat, dropping small kisses alone her collarbone. She framed his face with her hands, kissing his half-smile, and his thumb slipped down between them, finding the sweet spot to send her right over the edge, capturing her outcry with his mouth. His own orgasm ripped through him, setting his blood on fire, making him feel completely liquefied. He wrapped his arms around her shuddering body, taking Claire down with him as he fell back onto the sheets, her face nestled into the crook of his neck and her ragged breathing prickling his heated skin, the world spinning backwards around them.

Sprawled over his chest, her awareness still dimmed and somewhere on the periphery of the drowsy afterglow, Claire nuzzled into his collarbone, kissing whatever skin she could reach without moving. "Don't go," she muttered. "I don't want you to leave."

"Not going," Owen promised, his breath still to be found somewhere here. "Not this time. Not for the goddamn world."

"No one called me baby after… you know, you," she added a few minutes later when he already began to suspect she'd dozed off.

He chuckled, his fingers threading lazily through her hair, seemingly unable to stop touching her, tracing the lines of her back, her arms, her face as the sun outside the small window finally sunk behind the trees, pale stars flickering to life in the indigo sky, and the heat of the day finally let up. "'Course they didn't," he responded, filled with so much affection it could drown them both. "No one's got any right to do it but me."

Claire fell asleep soon afterwards, curled into him, while Owen stayed awake for another hour, listening to her breathe, scared and dumbfounded and ecstatic for all the right reasons before drifting off as well, worn out and blissful, just as the pale crescent of the moon crept from behind the trees.

 **To be continued...**

* * *

 **A/N** : Well, one more part to go! Hope you're having please don't forget to let me know what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note** : And here we are! The last part, which was a lot of fun to work on, and I hope you'll find entertaining :) Thank you so much for sticking around and for your incredible support! See ya on the flip side!

* * *

It was funny, really, how much had changed. And how little, too.

Claire roused slowly to the awareness to Owen's body enveloped around hers. One of his hands was cupped around her breast, playing lazily with her nipple while he pressed slow, lazy kissed to her neck. Still half asleep, she purred in appreciation, stretching to accommodate his touch, the memories of the previous night flooding her with soft, pulsing glow. Owen laughed softly, the sound rumbling low in his chest and reverberating through her, eliciting another sound of approval.

"Morning," Owen breathed out against her skin, his eager hand slipping from her breast and skimming down her stomach, Claire's breath catching when he reached the sensitive spot between her thighs.

"Owen, I can't, I have to…"

She was going to be late, and she was never late. Certainly not because of a—

He eased one finger in, and then another, and Claire lost the train of her thought, as well as the ability to think altogether, her very sanity hanging by a thread. She made another attempt to pull away from him, albeit a weak one, because she was pathologically punctual, and if she didn't make it on time… Her teeth dug into her lip to hold back a moan when he added a third digit, his thumb stroking her clit in slow circles while he was sucking gently on her earlobe. She rolled over, reaching out to grab his face and bring their lips together, finding it awfully unfair that he had access to her and she didn't—

"Do I have your attention now?" Owen murmured between the pecks before abandoning her mouth in favour of a more deliberate quest down her body, peppering his way along her neck and down her chest with feather-light kisses.

It was barely past dawn, the room still coloured in soft shades of blue, but the air was already thick and heavy, making her feel like she was floating in the water.

Claire let out a shaky exhale when his lips closed around her breast, biting her flesh – light enough to leave a mark but not to hurt. Her eyes dropped shut with a stuttered sigh when he nuzzled his forehead into her belly before pushing her legs apart. And then his mouth replaced his hand, teasing and kissing and caressing, swirls of pleasure sparkling in her core and spreading to the tips of her toes and the top of her head.

Her breath hitched, her fingers gripped his hair, nails scraping over his scalp. More, she thought, grabbing on to the headboard with another hand and allowing the reality to slip away at last, surrendering to his mercy, falling and flying, vanishing in the blissful release, her body contracting, cracked wide open.

Chuckling, he pressed a kiss to her inner thigh, and she shuddered at the sharp prickly feel of his _stubble_ scratching across her sensitive skin, his breath on her tender folds sending another wave of aftershocks through her. And how could too much be not enough, she wondered absently. Her hips rose in half-demand, half-invitation, each of her breaths coming out as a soft moan, and Owen's hand slipped under her knee, lifting it and plunging into her. She took him deep on a single thrust, eyes wide, pupils blows, and his mouth crashed against hers, swallowing another outcry of delight.

She could taste herself on him, feel the rapid staccato of his heartbeat and the throbbing sensation inside her until she couldn't tell where she ended and he began.

After a few crazy collisions, he slowed down, sliding in and out of her in steady strokes, their hips meeting rock for lazy rock. One hand tangled in her hair, another pressing her knee to his ribs, Owen groaned into her neck, arching into her when Claire's nails dug into his back, smearing pain into pleasure. Skin flushed and slick with sweat, she dragged her teeth against his shoulder, quivering and clenching around him, another climax building up fast, making her breath short and ragged, her belly tight. Her body tensed in a last attempt to hold on to balancing over the abyss for a little while longer, melting into him, Owen's hands on her skin the only thing keeping her from dissolving completely.

He turned her face to his, captured her lips with his mouth, both anchored in her and lost in the sheer glee of scattered sensations ricocheting through his body. It didn't take Claire long to shatter around him, quaking beneath him and coming undone, hot and sticky all around him, and he was following her, up and through, and into the sweet oblivion, her name on his lips a curse and a plea.

He chuffed against her neck, trying to get the words to work again, but what came out was a grunt of satisfaction. Claire giggled, the sound burning into him, holding him like a gravitational pull. He shifted to take some weight off of her, propping himself on the elbow over her to kiss her again, slowly and sweetly, pouring everything he couldn't say into it and praying she felt it.

"I'm not going to be able to walk for a week," she said with a chuckle when he stretched beside her, still half draped over her body, their skins stick with sweat, his hands running up and down her sternum, circling around her breasts, tracing her ribs like he needed to make sure she was really there.

Owen's eyebrow cocked curiously, his lips curling in a contemplative grin. "Mm, well, in that case we could stay here and… No, what I have in mind is not gonna make it better."

She puffed a breath into his chest, sleepy and drowsy, and not at all eager to move on with her day. "I need a shower," she sighed with a grimace after a bit.

His fingers brushed her hair back from her cheek as he studied her in the soft morning light, taking note of the lines of her face, the golden specs gleaming in her eyes, the sprinkling of freckles on her nose. "Yeah… You're gonna need help with that."

She looked up. "Why? Is it not working?"

Owen's grin widened. "Oh, it's working! But it's more of a two-person activity."

"Since when?" Claire hummed, curious.

He caught her hand, pressed his lips to her fingertips. "Since we haven't done it together in way too long." His voice low, his expression mock solemn, and she rolled her eyes, and wondered if she could take a day off. Or two. Or three.

"You're impossible, you know that?" Claire mumbled, failing to sound as stern as she intended.

Owen waggled his brows at her. "I've heard it's one of my best traits."

xoox

It didn't work out quite as planned. The shower cubicle was too small to fit them both, what with Owen's massive form filling nearly all of it and leaving her plastered against one of the walls. In the end, Claire let him go first, choosing to take a closer look at the bungalow in the meantime. His shirt draped over her frame, she wandered into the living room, taking notice of everything she didn't bother paying attention to yesterday.

It was small, but neat and tidy. A row of books on the shelf by the couch, some magazines on the coffee table. His TV was on the older side, but there was a PlayStation hooked to it. Claire spotted a console sticking from between two couch cushions. Nothing too personal, save for the fishing rods propped against the wall near the door, but then again, he hadn't been around that long, she figured. The whole place smelled of old wood and lemon furniture polish, dust and forest, the floorboards warm beneath her bare feet – it reminded her of an old log cabin where her family used to spend two weeks every summer when Claire was little.

She trailed her fingertips along the spines of the books, reading the titles as the water started in the small bathroom tucked behind the kitchen, and the smile her lips stretched into all but split her face in half.

When Claire emerged from the bedroom after taking her turn in the shower, feeling and looking more like herself, Owen was fumbling with the coffee maker sitting on the counter. Wearing nothing but loose jeans that were riding low on his hips, he was whistling something under his breath, cheerful and completely off-key. She paused in the doorway and allowed her gaze to take in the taut muscles of his back, moving with his every breath he took and every slightest move he made, rolling under the tan skin and running in defined lines toward his narrow waist and two dimples on his lower back.

Her lips tugged up at the corners completely on the will of their own. If nothing else, she did know how to appreciate a nice view.

He was indeed wider in the shoulders, stronger in every possible way, and his hair was not sandy-blond as she remembered, darkened by time, but his laugh sounded the same, and when he was looking at her, it was still making her weak in the knees. Which was ridiculous on just about every level because she truly through she'd long outgrown those sentiments, and yet here she was, threading on thin ice because every step felt like it needed to be thought through, but it still was worth not turning back. And the barbwire he wore around his heart? She probably should've recognized it at first sight. After all, she was wrapped in it head to toe.

Her nose twitched as the bitter scent of fresh coffee filled his nook of a kitchen, wafting through the air.

As if on cue, Owen looked over his shoulder and flashed a bright smile at her, not oblivious to the fact that she was practically eating him up with her eyes. "See anything you like?"

"Smell something I like," she countered, unfazed, reaching for his coffee mug and taking a small sip. "Mm, that's better."

"What?" He asked innocently. "Feeling a little tired?"

Struggling to keep a straight face, Claire nudged him with her elbow and shook her head. Another sip of coffee and a familiar, pleasant warmth started to spread over her body, kicking the life back into her, setting her gears in motion again. Tired was a major understatement – Claire couldn't help but feel like her very soul had run a marathon and needed to catch a breath. If nothing else, her eyes felt like someone used them as punching bags, and she nearly fell asleep under the spray of hot water not five minutes ago.

And then there was Owen, standing in front of her in all of his shirtless glory and with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, and all she could think of was maybe throwing her caution out the window and tracing every line of his body all over again, learning him anew, kissing him senseless until they were both breathless and their lips bruised.

 _Here, take my heart. It's weathered and tired, and more than a little timid, but still fully functional most of the time. Kiss me the way you used to because I don't want to remember anything else. And for the love of god, please don't ever let me go_.

It frightened her… no, scratch that. It _terrified_ her to the bones how easily she slipped right back and accepted the idea of being with him, and how her body responded to his every touch and every kiss, and everything in between like it knew nothing else. He was not supposed to have that effect on her still, his easy smile was not allowed to turn her into a puddle of goo at his feet. It felt unfair that the walls she'd spent years building around herself collapsed so easily, and her first instinct was, of course, to fight back against this kind of blatant betrayal. But her body felt sore in the right places for all the good reasons, and hell if Claire didn't want to call in sick and not leave this house until the Owen-Grady-shaped hole he'd left behind closed up completely.

Meanwhile, Owen leaned against the wood counter, regarding her with a great deal of fondness. She was wearing her yesterday's clothes, complete with the bloodstained pants, her hair was a mess, and she looked like hell, and yet he wore an expression of a boy who found his dream present under a Christmas tree. Frankly, she'd lie to herself if she didn't admit that it made her stomach flutter more than just a little, the tiny wrinkles in the corners of his eyes making her think of rays of sunshine, lighting her up from the inside.

"You hungry?" He asked.

Claire shook her head and bit into her bottom lip, bracing herself for the inevitable.

"Look, Owen, just because we…" She cleared her throat. "Just because some things changed doesn't mean that everything between us is magically fixed."

He took the mug from her hands and put it on the counter before drawing her toward him. "Did you get that idea in the shower?" One hand on her hip, he smoothed down her hair with another one, his index finger trailing along her cheekbone. "'Cause if the answer's yes, you're not showering alone for as long as I live."

And there it was, the _why_ and the _how_ , the endless list of reasons that led them to this moment in time, all hiding in the corners of his smile and lurking behind his blue eyes. It felt like she started falling a decade and half ago, and never stopped since, and that, too, was frightening in its own way. Dreams crashed and wings broken and wars lost and smooth edged sharpened into blades – a crazy mix of everything that they grew up into.

"I'm serious," Claire pointed out with reproach, knowing that if she gave in now, he'd be tearing down her carefully constructed life until there was nothing left of it, and also knowing she wouldn't try to stop him. Damn it, she was already halfway there…

Owen's smile slipped and he let out a long breath through his nose. "I know." He glanced past her, his hand slipping down to curl around the back of her neck, fingers playing absently with her soft curls, the warmth of his touch spreading through her. His gaze fastened on hers again. "I get it, okay?" His voice dropped. "It's a lot, and… We can talk, we can—I don't know, take it slow. Take it at a snail's pace if you want, but let's do it now, and not in 16 years."

Her hand crept up his chest, splayed on his skin. There were so many things that could go wrong again, and as much as Claire didn't want to think about them, she had already gone through all possible _what-ifs_ and _maybes_ – it was her mode operation, if not survival. Thinking a hundred steps ahead instead of ten, playing it safe instead of taking risks. The last time she allowed herself to slip, she ended up dreaming of getting run over by a train, and that was the kind of lesson that stuck.

Yet, he was right here with her, warm and solid, and probably just as scared, if Claire knew him all. And his heart was thumping steadily under her palm, giving her every promise in the word without Owen's having to so much as open his mouth, her brain tuning into a mush from breathing him, and she knew for a fact that she'd be taking that leap, her arms spread wide open to the wind. The question here was whether or not she'd remember to grab a parachute this time, or if she'd trust him to be her safety net, praying he'd catch her when she landed.

"Sure," she nodded, allowing herself to relax, and his easy, in uncertain smile was back again, a firm wall of his muscles coiling around her, attuned to the shift in Claire's mood.

"Whatever you want," Owen promised, tilting her face up and kissing her quickly, his thumb stroking the line of her jaw. "Now, d'you mind giving me a ride? My car's still at the paddock."

His words took a moment to sink in, and then her eyes widened as the realization clicked. "You said you'd be back."

His eyebrows knitted together comically. "What?"

"Yesterday, before we left, you said you'd be back soon, and you haven't…"

She closed her eyes slowly, and Owen let out a hearty laugh. "Come on, Claire. No one seriously expected me to come back any more than I thought I would."

Claire pressed a hand to her mouth and dropped her forehead on his shoulder. "Oh, god," she groaned.

"I'm afraid, your impeccable reputation is irrevocably ruined, Ms. Dearing," Owen snorted, kissing the top of her head.

"Where did you learn those words?" She scoffed, pulling back and desperately trying to ignore her burning cheeks, which certainly didn't escape his attention.

"My girlfriend's a fan of fancy vocabulary," he shook his head, coaxing another smile out of her. "There it is. So, about that ride…" His hands traveled up and down her sides, digging into her flesh through the blouse that felt simultaneously too thin and too _in-the-way_ under his touch. "Or, alternatively, we could-"

Claire rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Owen…"

"What? We have many, many years of catching up to do!" He protested defensively when she managed to slip out of his grasp.

"And you want to do it in two days?" She hummed, picking up her purse from the couch. Her phone was nearly dead and practically exploding with several dozens of messages and emails that undoubtedly required her immediate attention.

"Can't blame a guy for trying," he called after her when she told him to get dressed and meet her outside.

Claire easily navigated the twists and turns in the back roads, following Owen's directions back to the paddock. The route they'd taken yesterday no longer seemed confusing at all now that she was actually paying attention where they were going.

In the passenger seat beside her, Owen looked like a Cheshire Cat, grinning at her for all he was worth whenever she would chance a glance at him, her own mouth tugging upward at the corners at the sight of such undisclosed glee on his face. It was a miracle he didn't set the car on fire, she thought not without affection. If she didn't know for a fact that he had about as much sleep as she did, which wasn't a lot, she would've never guessed, and god, how unfair was that?

Except nothing was fair, and yet everything was, and she wouldn't choose to be anywhere else, not for anything in the world.

"Do I need a tetanus shot?" She asked him, pulling up to one of the low structures scattered around the paddock, half hoping no one would see them, and half not caring.

Owen's eyes darted toward the blood stain near the hem if her pants. "If your skin starts tuning gray and scaly in a few days, we'll get you a tracking implant and you'll be fine," he responded seriously, earning an eye-roll and a smack on the shoulder for good measure. He chuckled. "Honestly, you'll be okay. It's barely a scratch."

"You would know."

It was hard not to notice the scars and marks crisscrossing his skin, some pale and almost indistinguishable, others more prominent and raw, rising a swarm of questions in her head she didn't know how to ask. Owen wore them as badges of honour, like they were something that proved a life well lived, a life full of adventures where one day was never like the one before it, each of them holding a story, a memory. She traced them with her fingertips, grateful to have him safe and if a little worn at the edges here with her again, but also wistful, unable to shake off the feeling that she had missed so much that trying to catch up would feel like nothing but a race against time, the depth of everything she didn't know about him making her think of bottomless ocean.

Her own markings were less obvious – they showed themselves in never calling first, in needing to have an upper hand in every situation, in always ending relationships before she got too attached, in planning everything so far ahead it felt like she'd already lived through every possible experience before they even started. The fear of being too much or not enough often left her too exhausted to even try. Undoubtedly, Owen had his fair share of invisible scars as well, the ones that would manifest when she least expected them to.

All things considered, they were in for one hell of a ride…

Claire slumped against the back of her seat and turned off the engine. It was pretty early still, the commotion she was used to not in full swing yet. She could still hear the voices of the other people, hollering to one another over the sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs nearby. While in the park the air smelled like palm trees and tropical flowers, here it was more about the breeze and salt seawater hanging in the air like fine mist. That might be why Owen's hair and his clothes smelled like the surf, she mused, resisting the urge to bury her nose in his skin again.

He reached for her hand, his fingers running along the length of hers, and she looked away from the window and at him again, feeling the tense line of her shoulders relax. This place was wild and unforgiving, and who would they be in the end if they didn't learn to hold on to what mattered the most?

He leaned in to brush his lips to hers, his hand curled around her jaw, and she grabbed his face, framing it with her palms, deepening the kiss. He smelled like soap, his hair still damp from the shower, curling at the ends and his stubble scratchy against her hands, and all she could think of was that nothing in her life ever felt this much like _finally_.

xoox

"What's with the face?" Zara asked, not bothering to mask her curiosity.

"Hm?" Claire looked up from the purchase forms she was signing.

"You look like…" Zara's lips stretched into a wider smile. "Who is he? Spill!"

Well, that might take a while, Claire thought, shaking her head and reaching for another stack of papers, careful not to miss anything. Also, trying to explain what was going on with her might need some serious concentration, perhaps – something she was seemingly incapable of lately.

Claire Dearing who worked nights and weekends and was known for her scrupulous attention to detail couldn't focus on something for longer than 10 minutes. Claire Dearing who valued professionalism above everything else kept finding herself humming something under her breath. Claire Dearing who had a taste for fine things in life, like Jacuzzis and central cooling system, was counting the minutes till she could get back to a small, crammed bungalow in the middle of the island.

If someone told her a few months ago she would gladly look past the swarms of mosquitoes and tepid water in the shower without even taking them into account, she would tell them they were insane. Now, she would zip past bewildered Zara at 6PM on the dot, flying down to the parking lot like her very life depended on it, and maybe in a way it did, she was starting to suspect. Blood flowing and heart racing, she would forego her own spacious suite for another night in a small cabin with a man who was making her feel alive again.

They talked, too. Half a lifetime was a lot to cover when it came to getting acquainted with one another again. She told him about Karen and Scott and the boys, their faces not registering with Owen, but the names sounded vaguely familiar, if a little faded, and it was like a thin string connecting them both to something they shared that started to unravel everything else. His head resting on Claire's stomach and her hand threading slowly through his hair damp with sweat, they would share bits and pieces of their lives, threading carefully through something that felt like uncharted waters, mapping out the way to one another.

"Two nephews, huh?" Owen asked, kissing along her sternum, his fingers running slow circles around her hipbone and up her side, as if mesmerized by the feeling of her skin, smooth and silky.

"They think I'm a figment of their imagination," she grimaced a little, remembering all the missed birthdays and holidays, the money she sent in lieu of visits and real presents. Not the proudest moment of her life.

He let out a short laugh. "Fun Aunt Claire." His hand moved to her hip, a line of goosebumps springing on her heated skin. "You know, I wanted to find you," Owen said after a few moments, his arms flexing around her. He rubbed his bearded cheek on her soft belly. "After a while, when I came back to the States. Five, maybe six years later."

Claire paused. Even the air around them felt electrified somehow.

"Why didn't you?" She asked softly when he didn't add anything else.

He inhaled deeply and then let it out slowly, deflating around her. "Come on, Claire. You were a golden girl with a future and I was a delinquent with questionable life choices." The words came out as a whoosh of breath that washed over her skin. "If anything, I thought I was doing you a solid one by staying the hell away from you."

"This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard," she told him after a few moments, and Owen all but chocked on his snort, practically hearing her roll her eyes.

He rolled over, taking his weight off of her and then kissed each peak of her breasts, making her giggle before scooting up until their faces were on the save level, her eyes glinting in the dark. He brushed her fizzy bangs from her forehead, tracing his fingertips over her brow and along the delicate lines of her face, as if trying to memorize her with his hands as well as his eyes, reading her like she was written in Braille.

"Yeah, well, I'm a work in progress," he admitted, his mouth curling ever so slightly, mirroring her own ghost of a smile.

His confession wasn't sitting quite right with her, a storm of emotions taking over the logic. She was mad at him for a very long time, and the chances were, if he showed up out of the blue while she was still riding through the anger and loss, she'd possibly throw something at his head. Still, it was hard not to think of everything that could have been but never was, and her mind was racing, trying to remember her 20-something self and the choices she would've made, unable to place either of them in the picture the way they'd fit.

She was lost and hurt and confused, wondering if her scars would ever stop throbbing at the mere thought of him. But one thing he was wrong about – she was not better off without him, never had been, and if the fact that they ended up here, in that moment, sprawled on his bed, wrapped in humid darkness and threading through their memories like they were scared of missing something vital was not a proof of that, she didn't know what was.

"Aren't we all?" Claire murmured, pulling him over her, her fingers tangled in his hair, her eyelids heavy and her mind fuzzy, too wired to sleep and too exhausted to stay awake, and it was at the times like this that his presence was the only thing that mattered.

He missed her hair, Owen informed her, a golden waterfall she chopped off during her second year in college because she didn't think braids were professional enough. That, and because she remembered all too clearly the way it would brush over his chest when she would move above him in his tiny bedroom in his father's house on long, hot afternoons, their eyes locked together, and cutting it almost felt like cutting this memory out of her mind, too.

He'd told her about the NAVY. About the sand storms that made him wash the sand out of every crevice of his body for weeks on end, about the drills in the freezing rain and that scar on his back left by a barbwire during one of them. About how half the time he didn't believe he'd live to celebrate another birthday. About the training and the tours, and the InGen's offer he thought was a joke at first.

"Did you believe them?" He asked her, shaking his head, his whole body wrapped around her. It was never not hot, and he was like a furnace, but every time he'd try to pull away, Claire would draw him closer still, breathing him, reveling in every smallest detail – the way he fir around her, the beating of his heart, the vibration of his voice that she felt before she heard it.

And after a particularly nasty nightmare that seized him one night, leaving him gasping for air and covered in a film of sweat, he also admitted that the bungalow was indeed a deal breaker – the crowds were setting off his inner alarms and triggering his PTSD, courtesy of the second tour that left him more than a little shaken, helpfully supplying him with blood-infused dreams.

He went back to school eventually too, changing his initial major from mechanical engineering to marine biology, which ultimately was what secured him a spot in the training program in the NAVY, and which led to an offer from InGen after a groundbreaking success – the technical terms bouncing off of her, stripped off their meaning. Cause and effect, Claire mused, trying not to get overwhelmed by the avalanche of small happenstances that needed to fall into place in this particular pattern for the two of them to meet again.

"I still have that photo of you," Owen murmured into her skin, a smile in his voice. "From… what was it? A Sunday market?"

"State Fair?" She suggested, trying to remember the day he was talking about, the memories of it so faint and frail she feared they would turn into dust if she tried to pull them up to the surface once again.

"That's the one." His hand found hers, lacing their fingers together.

He showed it to her later, worn and faded from sitting in his wallets and pockets, and going through several high-speed washing cycles, he admitted with a sheepish chuckle. She was not looking at the camera, her profile standing in sharp contrast against the early evening sky and her hair falling down almost to her waist, stirred by the hot wind. Claire couldn't recall posing for it, didn't even remember either one of the bringing a camera with them at all, and yet here it was, a proof that a part of her life she'd spent years trying to erase from her mind was, indeed, very real.

She traced her fingertips to the cracks running across the old photo paper, feeling his gaze on her, watching a storm of emotions washing over her face. "I can't believe you kept it."

"I can't believe I found the real you again."

Claire shook her head, pulling herself back from the tangled mess of her thoughts. Back in her office, with Zara watching her with puzzled curiosity mixed with amusement. She offered her assistant a small smile, choosing to look past Zara's questions.

"It's nothing," she insisted lightly. "What's on the docket for today?"

xoox

Most of the time, Owen loved his job more than anything in the world. And then there were days when everything was wrong no matter how hard he tried.

Today was one of them.

They were four weeks into the training, and more often than not, the raptors were eager to go along with it. At this point, he was mainly focused on alternating games and snack time to keep them engaged and interested enough to figure out their individual strengths and weaknesses, and to assess their intellectual range in order to adjust the things he had in mind for later. They were growing fast, too, and he knew that soon he wouldn't be able to casually stroll into their cage and merely order them to stay back.

Whatever InGen had in mind, the Velociraptors were no dolphins. Their mental capacity was roughly the same, their memory just as impressive, and more often than not, they were driven by the desire to show off, do as they were told for his praise. At least, at this age. But at the same time, their predator instincts were sharper, and Owen didn't look forward to seeing them kick in fully. While the marine mammals often relied on self-preservation in making decisions, the raptors didn't shy away from attacking the possible 'enemy', which was something he needed to figure out how to turn to his advantage if he was going to make this work.

Right now, however, he was a stone's throw away from tossing the goddamn clicker into the ocean and catching the next ferry off this island. Having one of girls kicking around in foul mood was unfortunate. Having all four of them being irritable and snappy was a nightmare. Granted, he knew it was the heat and not his personal failure. The temperature had been climbing all weak, and today Owen couldn't help but feel like that egg that ended up being fried on the hood of the car. His sweat-soaked shirt was sticking to his back, making him cringe with every move, and the heavy boots he wore for practicality as well as for protection from the four animals that probably wouldn't mind snacking on his toes felt like were leaden, making him drag his feet around the catwalk like he was in shackles. Generally, he appreciated the remote location of the paddock and the lush forest surrounding it, but did no one really consider adding some sort of a roof over the bridges running along the concrete walls? At this rate, he was going to end up with a heat stroke and no time, and probably fall into the cage and be eaten by his charges before anyone even noticed.

He stuffed the clicker into the pocket of his pants and leaned against the railing, his eyes snatching the raptors one by one from the cover of the tall grass and trees as he tried to come up with what he was going to tell Hoskins about the progress they made.

Hoskins came back two weeks ago, and Claire retreated to her own office, no longer having an excuse to stop by – for work reasons, at least. She would still come over now and then though, between the shifts or if he was staying past the work hours, carried away by whatever they were up to here. She was not particularly eager to be too much in the faces of the other handlers, drawing a line at pet names and kissing in public even though Owen knew for a fact that no one cared – she'd become such a fixture even Barry stopped teasing him about the development in their relationship. But he was not going to argue with her about something as trivial and unimportant. After all, he got to take her home every night anyway.

She wouldn't come closer to the raptors again, choosing to observe them from the safe distance, but she did learn to tell them apart, and Owen couldn't help but consider it a small victory.

Which was why he wasn't all that surprised to see her sleek car spring into the clearing in front of the paddock just when he finally decided to maybe give another feeding a go before trying something else today. Except it was the middle of the afternoon, and Owen doubted her schedule allowed for random breaks. Especially with literally everyone involved in his project milling around.

Owen pushed back from the railing and headed toward the stairs, his forehead creased with concern.

"I need you," she breathed out when he met her at the base of the staircase.

He gave her a quick cursory scan, relieved to find her physically unharmed in any way, if a little too stressed to his liking. "Okay," he said slowly now that he was almost certain that no one had died or suffered a fatal injury. "What is it?"

She bit into her lip, the back-and-forth on her face so wonderfully adorable he almost forgot about the six shitty hours of his life he knew he was not getting back.

But before she could even open her mouth, Hoskins sauntered over to him, eyebrows arched at the sight of her. "Is everything okay?" He asked, his gaze darting between her and Owen, giving an extra attention to Claire in the form of a pointed once-over.

She offered him her business smile, and Owen bristled momentarily. He hated when she put her Operations Manager mask on, and the way Hoskins was leering at her wasn't making it any better. He might as well be waving a red cloth in front of a bull.

"We have a small hiccup at the park, Mr. Hoskins," she offered him almost pleasantly, save for the chilly touch to her smile that would make anyone's blood run cold. "Mind if I borrow one of your men for a little while?"

"Sure," he smirked and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants. "But not for another two hours, I'm afraid. See, we're also working here."

"I understand," Claire agreed. "But it really is an emergency…"

"I'm sure it is," Hoskins cut her off.

"Come on, Vic," Owen started. The man had an ego the size of an Empire State Building and it wasn't a secret to anyone that knowing that Claire, technically, stood a few steps above him on the corporate ladder rubbed him the wrong way on just about every level. And seeing him flaunt his flimsy power in front of her was making Owen's blood boil. Like it was not enough that he was practically talking to her breasts.

"Get back to work, Grady," Hoskins ordered dismissively before allowing his gaze to travel up and down Claire once again. "I don't care how wide you had to spread your legs to get this job, missy, but it doesn't mean you can just walk around here-"

And then he was suddenly on the ground before his words even registered with Claire, his hand clasped around his jaw, and Owen was towering over him, his mouth set tight and his fingers clenched into fists.

He pointed a finger at Hoskins who seemed to be too dumbfounded to even begin to process what just happened. "Don't you dare talk like that to my wife," he said in a low, dangerous voice, each word landing on another man like a blow.

"I'm not your—" Claire finally gathered her bearings, her eyes wide. "I'm not his wife," she said quickly, then turned to Owen. "Look, forget it…"

It might have felt like everything happened in slow motion, but when she looked around, the time kicked back into its regular pace, and everyone around them stopped whatever they were doing to gape at the scene unfolding before their eyes.

"Come on." Owen jerked his chin, staring toward her car before he pounced on Hoskins once again.

"Was that really necessary?" Claire demanded, staring the engine. She heaved a long sigh, her stomach still churning, as she made a U-turn to get back to the road.

Owen stared out the passenger window, flexing his fingers slowly, curling and uncurling them. His knuckles had already turned red, and he knew they were going to start throbbing soon, but that moment of impact that wiped the sneer off of Hoskins's face and sent him to the ground was worth it.

"He had no business talking to you like that," he muttered, the anger still making him see red.

"I can handle myself," Claire pointed out stiffly.

"Well, the next time I'll hold your purse and you'll do the punching," Owen breathed out.

"No one is going to do any-" She cut off and took a sharp turn. "Hoskins is an asshole, but this kind of behaviour is still unacceptable."

"Okay, forget about him. What is it, Claire?" He finally turned to her. "This is not your booty call face."

She didn't take the bait, the joke falling flat between them, her eyebrow pulled together in concentration. "There's an… _issue_ with one of our new animals."

Owen's interest piqued. " _New_ animals? You just went and _made_ a new dinosaur?"

She shot him a dirty look. "Where do you think your raptors came from, Owen? Real Velociraptor eggs from 65 million years ago?" She shook her head, steering the car toward the grey walls of another paddock rising above the treetops. "Nothing here is real."

He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Would it kill you to let me believe otherwise?" The question was not addressed to anyone in particular. "So, what's the problem?" He asked when she parked the car in the shade of the trees and they stepped out of the air-conditioned bubble into the humid afternoon that wrapped around them like a blanket.

"We keep losing the thermal signature," Claire explained as she started toward the stairs leading toward the observatory. "This paddock is very much like the one where your keep your raptors, and I know you oversaw its construction." Her high heels clacked on the metal stairs. "I need to know if the chip is malfunctioning or if the asset—the _animal_ actually found a way to sneak in and out of the cage."

So this was what the big secret was about, Owen thought, looking around. All the extra hours and long meetings, the questions she didn't give him any answers to when he asked, saying instead she was not yet at liberty to discuss it. He thought it was about the remodeling of the Aqua Park, truth be told.

"What's this thing made of?" He asked when she swiped her card through the reader near the door and they once again found themselves in the comfort of the room equipped with cooling system.

Claire hesitated. "I know that the base genome is the T-Rex," she responded almost uncertainly. He quirked his eyebrow at her. "My clearance level doesn't allow to know the rest," she admitted not without a hint of irritation in her voice, although he wasn't sure it was aimed at him or the system.

"Okay, so…" Owen nodded a quick hello to the tech sitting in the corner and then walked over the floor-to-ceiling reinforced glass and peered outside, trying to catch a movement in the trees before him.

"I talked to the ACU and they assured me that the paddock was safe," she stopped beside him, and from this close, Owen caught a whiff of her perfume mixed with her sunscreen lotion she couldn't possibly forego with that pale skin of hers even if she tended to spend most of her time indoors. With the tech being there, there was no way she would allow him to do anything, but Owen's hand brushed lightly against hers, and for a brief second her features relaxed, a small smile crossing her face when she turned to him, grateful for the reassurance. "But I have a presentation in two days," she added, "and one of the handlers nearly got dragged inside during the feeding, and I'm currently facing the possibility of either having to hire someone new, or maybe even dealing with a lawsuit."

"What can I do?"

Claire's eyes fixed on something behind the glass even though Owen couldn't see anything in there, try as he might. "I need a second opinion." She said after a few moments. "We can reinforce the paddock, build the walls up higher. Or we need to replace the tracking implant. But I need to know what the problem is."

Owen's gaze flickered toward the tech before he curled his pinky finger around hers, tugging at it slightly until her smile was back, or whatever passed for it when she was obviously under more pressure than he ever imagined was possible. (And here he thought he was having a problem, ha!) "Piece of cake," he promised her with a wink, still not quite over the earlier confrontation with Hoskins, but happy to have his attention switched to something else. Getting to spend some extra time with her was an added bonus. "What's the plan?"

The plan was simple enough.

The animal had already been sedated and the vet expected her to remain passed out for another hour. In the meantime, Owen and a couple of members of ACU were to go into the paddock and check it for breaches or system malfunctions while the vet examined the animal to make sure she didn't lose the tracker. It bothered Claire on more than one level that the implant reading was still coming from the paddock even when the thermal signature would go. It wasn't uncommon for the animals to short-circuit each other's implants, but it was one thing when they were talking about mellow herbivores, and something else altogether when something that was making Claire's blood run cold was involved.

The Indominus Rex.

The name still sounded like a joke to her, but no one asked her to weigh in on it, and she never did. She – Henry Wu said it was a _she_ – was still young, only half the size of what they expected her to be in a few months, but even so, she was as big as an elephant already, plus claws and teeth, and those unblinking eyes. Just thinking about sending anyone in there made Claire shiver. But what choice did she have?

Four people in total.

She watched them walk in through a small door under the observatory – the main gate was only to be opened if there was a need to transfer the I-Rex somewhere else. Two armed men, Owen, and a guy with a vet bag. She hated the idea of having him here, her heart tripping over itself when she imagined two-foot tall raptors playfully cutting his neck open. Something that was practically a T-Rex, even pumped with tranquilizers, was something she didn't want him anywhere near to.

Fifteen minutes, at most, that was what Owen told her. It was meant to leave them all plenty of time to get out before the I-Rex started to wake up. Claire was counting seconds in her head.

When the forest stirred before her eyes, she thought it was the wind at first. It wasn't until the long snout peeked from between the trees, the nostrils flaring as she sniffed the air, that the realization hit her, and her heart dropped.

The men noticed her a few seconds after Claire did, in disadvantage on the ground.

She jumped forward, banging her palms against the glass and yelling at them to run, knowing they couldn't hear her. The observation rooms were designed soundproof – no one wanted a dangerous animal spooked by a shrieking child. Her warning was unnecessary, though – it took them all not more than two seconds to see what they were dealing with. Two seconds too long – the I-Rex's teeth closed around the MCU man before he could so much as lift his rifle, his blood spraying across the ground in a wide arc.

How could she still be awake? There should be enough drugs in her system to kill something her size, and yet—

Claire rushed toward the tech and yanked the earpiece off of his head. "Get out of there, now!" She barked into it, hoping at least one of them heard her. Her phone slipped out of her sweaty palm and landed on the concrete floor at her feet, its screen shattered. If they responded, she didn't hear a word through the blood rush in her ears. She grabbed the tech's desk and barked at him, "Open the door!"

He blinked at her, socked, before springing into action, screaming something into his walkie-talkie and pushing the buttons on the console.

When Claire turned toward the window again, the man that was attacked was lying on the ground in a shapeless heap that was barely recognizable as a human, twisted and broken in all the wrong places; there was blood on the gravel around him, and Owen and the other two guys were running toward the door they came in through.

She pressed her hands to the glass, feeling helpless and useless and praying to all gods to keep him safe. The thirty feet separating them from the walls would be nothing in different circumstance, but then the I-Rex leaped out of hiding, her arm with razor-sharp claws reaching for her prey. She grazed the back of the vet – a young man that only started working here two months ago – and he tripped over his own feet and fell down.

"Go, damn it. Go," Claire pleaded under her breath. But Owen whirled around, his mouth opening and closing in the yell she couldn't hear. He yanked the vet to his feet and propelled him forward… before being thrown aside. "No. God, no…"

Hitting the wall, he collapsed down, but when the I-Rex's teeth were mere inches away from him, he pushed away from the ground and rolled between her legs, scrambling up and starting to the exit again. The I-Rex roared, making the whole paddock tremble, her eyes blazing with such raw fury it almost hurt to look, impossible to believe she was real. Swift for her size, she span around, but the men were out of Claire's line of sight by now, and she rushed toward the door, leaving the tech to gape at whatever the hell was going in the cage.

She burst out of the observatory and flew down a flight of stairs, nearly twisting her ankle on the grated surface beneath her feet and barreling into the railing on the landing to see the bared teeth disappear behind the closing door that was too small for her to fit through and Owen's fingers frantically pushing the buttons on the control panel on the wall before he slid down to the ground and leaned his back against the concrete. There was a cut on his forehead, bleeding pretty badly, and she didn't want to even think of what being tossed around felt like, but he was alive, and that alone left Claire weak in her knees.

The injured and horrified vet had his hand draped over the MCU man's neck as they stared at the steel panel that cut the raging monster from them, and behind it, the I-Rex was roaring in anger.

When Owen saw her standing above him, her hands gripping the metal railing with enough force to bend it, he smiled and gave her a weak wave.

xoox

He was watching the sun sink into the sea form the top of the bleachers running around the Mosasaurus's pool, his face coloured in every share of gold, when she finally found him a few hours later. Below them, the pool looked almost black, the pale form of the prehistoric monster moving below the surface nothing but a ghostly shadow.

The cut on Owen's forehead had been patched up, two butterfly Band-Aids holding it closed. His clothes were still covered in dust from rolling on the ground, but otherwise he looked his usual self, and the tight knot in her stomach finally eased, allowing Claire to start breathing deeply again.

"Are you okay?" She asked, taking a sit next to him.

Owen nodded and rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. I mean, considering."

 _I'm sorry_ , she wanted to say, but the words tasted foul in her mouth, choking her, a hot lump lodged in her throat.

"I talked to Simon," she breathed out instead, staring straight ahead. "They're not going to put a plug on this project." There was need to look at him to know that his jaw tightened, a vein popping out on his neck.

"You're shitting me now, right?" He muttered, disbelieving.

"Owen…"

He was buzzing with nervous energy now, and she knew that if he had it in him, he'd probably leap into the air upon hearing the news. "She's psychotic, Claire! She _pretended_ to be asleep because she was _hunting_. That man that died in her paddock today? He's not gonna be the last one." He shook his head, disgusted.

Claire opened her mouth to protest, to point out that she couldn't be _pretending_ because she was just an animal, and then promptly clamped it shut because there was nothing _just_ in the place. Everything here came with a price, and sometimes the price was human life.

"What do you want me to do?" She sighed, rubbing her eyes. "I can scream my head off, but I have no say in this, and trust me, I'm far from irreplaceable." This was actually something she considered. Maybe not seriously, maybe not for real yet, but the truth was there was no guarantee that whoever came next would do more. "I made my opinion perfectly clear. They politely ignored it."

"They can't keep her…" He pursed his lips together. "I can't believe Simon Masrani doesn't see this."

"He has no say in it, either," she admitted. "All decisions are made by the Board of Directors, and they weren't there today. They didn't see…" She swallowed. "They didn't see anyone die. All they know is what had been invested in this project and the revenue planned for when she's open for public."

"So you're gonna do nothing?"

"We will reinforce the paddock, minimize human contact and…" Claire paused. "If there was anything I could do, I would. I saw you almost die today." Her voice dropped and she looked down at her hands in her lap, feeling the panic rise in her chest again, making her heart clench. She had spent the last three hours on the phone with Simon and then several other members of the Board, not allowing herself to think yet of what she'd witnessed this afternoon, but it was only a matter of time before it caught up with her, and the idea terrified her. "I thought you…"

A sharp inhale, and Owen reached for her hand, weaving his fingers through hers and squeezing them when she didn't pull out of his grasp. Claire looked up, meeting his eyes in the purple dusk mixed with the light of the underwater lamps dotting the bottom of the pool. She ran her thumb over his bruised knuckles, wondering if the visible injuries were all he walked away from Paddock 11 with.

She didn't even realize how badly she was still shaking until his steady hand cred around hers, and once again, she found herself weak with relief that it wasn't Owen who never made it out of that cage alive, that someone else was a casualty, and what kind of _monster_ thought that?

"Claire?" The sound of his voice pulled her back to here and now. "Are _we_ okay?"

"Why wouldn't we be?" She blinked, feeling like she'd missed something, trying to rewind their conversation in her head, but still coming up empty.

"Because you freaked out," he winced. "Earlier. What I called you my wife."

"I did not… freak out," she protested.

"Yes, you did. You should've seen your face." A not so subtle shadow of hurt passed over his features, and even in semi-darkness it was impossible to miss. "I didn't mean it like… it wasn't like that, I just…"

"I didn't freak out," Claire pressed. "It caught me off-guard, is all." She let out a soft breath. "It took me a very long time to stop thinking of you that way, and then all this…" Her voice trailed off, swallowed by the hungry cries of seagulls circling over the trees near the beach, carried over by the wind. Claire tucked a strand of hair around her ear. "We're good, I think. I want us to be," she admitted. "It's just… It's not that I don't trust you, Owen."

Owen nodded. "But?"

"But I don't trust you not to hurt me again," she confessed, looking down at the pool.

"Noted," he cleared his throat. "The feeling's quite mutual." The corner of his mouth curled up humorlessly.

Claire sighed. "I'm not good at this."

"What, exactly? I can name at least 15 things off the top of my head that you're _spectacular_ at," he joked, but his heart wasn't in it. She smiled anyway, probably needing it as much as he did. "D'you think it would've worked out, you know, between us if maybe something went differently or if we tried harder?"

Now that was a heavy one. God knew, she'd spent _years_ , trying to figure that out. "I think… I think that sometimes you meet the right person at the wrong time," Claire said carefully after a pause. "And you need to be brave enough to give it a second chance when the right time comes." She grimaced a little, embarrassed by how it came out – like a Hallmark card message. "I don't want to get married again," she blurted out next before he responded. "Not to you, not to anyone. Thought I'd make that clear."

"Noted." Another nod. "I can live with that."

She bit her lip. "I don't know what you want, Owen, and I don't know if I can give it to you, but I have a spare toothbrush in your bathroom, and I found a pair of your pants in my hamper this morning." The laugh that bubbled up in his chest and scattered over the surface of the water, echoing in the distance nearly sent her soaring into the night sky. "And in my book, it's a pretty solid start."

Owen's hand cupped his cheek, tilting her face up, and he captured her lips with his. "Sounds fine to me."

"So, what now?" She asked, resting her chin on his shoulder.

He wrapped his arm around her, pressing a kiss to her temple, delighted and relieved and every kind of ecstatic for all the reasons he hadn't allowed himself to go into ever since they got back together. "I say we stick together," he suggested. _Provided I still have my job tomorrow_ , he added mentally, but chose to keep it to himself for the time being. "And we can start that by going back to my place and grilling a couple of burgers. All that running for my life... I'm starving."

Claire chuckled, her face turned into his chest. "Lead the way, Mr. Grady. I'm ravenous."

 **The end**

* * *

 **A/N:** Well, that was fun! Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did :)) And please don't leave without a review!


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